


The Strong Man

by seapigeon



Series: The Strong Man [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: AU once you get to Ultron, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Bisexual Steve Rogers, But I do like him I swear, Clint tells it like it is, Gay Sam Wilson, Gay Sex, I am hard on Tony in this one, M/M, Mutant Registration Act, Pietro Maximoff Lives, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Sam Wilson, Sam Wilson is a Gift, Sam and Steve Get Out, Sokovia Accords
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-30
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2018-12-21 14:28:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11946204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seapigeon/pseuds/seapigeon
Summary: He drove Steve home when they discharged him from the hospital.  He was okay, just a little lingering pain in his belly where they cut him open.  Steve stood inside the door of his apartment, paralyzed.  They’d fixed the wall that had been blown out but he would never unsee it.  He would never stop knowing who fired those shots.“Come on,” Sam said.“What?” Steve asked, listless.“You’re staying with me.”He turned hollow eyes on Sam.  “I can get by on my own.”Sam pursed his lips, unimpressed.  “Any other strong man bullshit you wanna spew at me before we go?”Steve laughed, then winced, and walked back out the door.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was on vacation. I then got the flu on vacation. Poof! Ficlet.
> 
> Not really sure where this came from. My love of Sam Wilson, probably, and while I know feelings are mixed on Age of Ultron, it did contain the great quote by Vision at the end:
> 
> "A thing isn't beautiful because it lasts."
> 
> \------
> 
> There is use of the French language in later parts, so I apologize in advance for any errors. Feel free to correct me.

I.

 

He could have sworn, before Christ and all that was holy, that Steve Rogers had flirted with him on the Mall the other day.Sam was usually good with playful banter, but the fact that he was casually talking to Captain America had thrown him.Before he realized what he was doing he’d made that comment about Steve stopping by the VA to impress the woman at the front desk, not realizing that it sounded like he was interested in said woman.In reality, Sabrina was married and he just wanted to brag, because everyone in the building knew Captain America was her celebrity freebie.Everyone also knew that Sofia Vergara was her husband’s celebrity freebie, lest anyone think it was an unfair arrangement.

But anyway, Steve _had_ flirted with him the other day, and he’d stopped by the VA today, unsolicited.Sabrina fell out of her chair when she saw him.It gave Sam life.It also gave him the chance to see Steve’s face light with a smile, and to see it reach his eyes when he laughed.When Steve asked him who his celebrity freebie was, he didn’t bother to explain that he didn’t need one because he was single; he just said Jensen Ackles to make it crystal clear that Sabrina was not his type. 

Sam showed Steve his office, and they got to talking.Steve was…well, where Sam had been, not too long ago.Feeling like the time had come to get out, but unsure what he could possibly do after being defined by the military for so long.It wasn’t a nice place.It was the kind of place that you grew from, though.

It was disarmingly easy to talk to him; Sam found himself telling Steve a little bit about his own experiences and making gentle suggestions.He didn’t seem ready to take it on in that moment.That was okay.At least the dialogue was opened.Steve seemed absurdly grateful for that, and it occurred to Sam that there weren’t many people he could talk to that would really understand.

Then Steve asked if he wanted to grab dinner.Sam dialed his answer down from _HELL YEAH_ to _sure that would be cool man_ and found himself at a barbecue place scarfing pulled pork and purposely getting collard greens stuck in the gap in his front teeth just to see Steve laugh again.It was so different than that serious face in his office, but no less endearing.In the course of ninety minutes he discovered that Steve was sweet and smart and insightful, not to mention pretty goddamn funny.But he had sharp edges, too, that Sam was willing to bet most people never saw.

He let Sam see.Quick as Alice falling down the rabbit hole Sam realized he was in trouble, the same way he was with Riley years back.That loss still hurt, but Riley would have boxed him about the ears if he backed away from this chance.So he invited Steve back to his place, mixed him a fancy drink, and when he couldn’t stand the temptation of tasting it on his lips anymore, he leaned in to kiss him.

And then Steve flinched and took a step back.Which left them here, now, staring at one another in Sam’s kitchen, hellish awkwardness all around.Sam should have been insulted, yet all he wanted to do was comfort the other man.Feelings were strange.

He gathered his dignity and said, “Steve…did I read this wrong?”

Blue eyes blinked at him.Steve’s brow twitched down and his lips parted slightly, though it was almost a full minute before he could say anything.

“No,” Steve replied, in a quiet, uncomfortable tone that Sam never imagined could have come out of him.His body language was guarded, his chest rising and falling too quickly.It was a combination of nervousness and…shame?

It clicked for Sam very suddenly.Shit.Flirting was one thing; that could be dismissed as harmless banter.But dinner and a nightcap in Sam’s apartment was something else altogether.It was a lot faster than someone like Steve was used to moving, and it only took that strange voice and his rounded shoulders for Sam to know he wasn’t entirely comfortable with his sexuality - whatever it was. 

_Great time to try to kiss on him, Wilson_. _He’s over there having a very late awakening and you’re trying to drag him into the 21st century by his dick._

“Was this a date?” Sam asked gently.

Steve closed his eyes and breathed a chuckle.“Only dates I ever went on, I might as well have been invisible.”

Sam frowned.“That can’t be true.”

“Try being an angry, wheezy string bean standing next to Bucky Barnes.” 

“I’m pretty sure I _was_ that guy when I was fifteen,” Sam laughed.“But I was standing next to Tyson Beckford’s low-rent, 6’3” cousin.”It was out of his mouth before he realized Steve had no idea who Tyson Beckford was.

“Doubt it,” Steve mumbled, not paying it any mind because that probably happened to him a hundred times a day.“Not with your smile.”

Well.Steve Rogers might not know how to date, but he knew a thing or two about flirting.Or maybe he was just that earnest.Sam leaned a little closer.Not enough to spook him, but enough to make his interest clear.

“I can assure you, Steve, you have my full attention, and you are anything but invisible.”

Lord, the way his cheeks colored.Irish roots on full display.He was fucking adorable.

“I’ve never—” he started, before stopping abruptly.

“You’ve never let a gentleman kiss you on the cheek before he bids you goodnight?”

“Um.”For a moment he was flustered, but when he regained control of himself he fixed Sam in a look.“A gentleman, huh?”

“I’m trying.”

“You’re succeeding.”

Sam smiled, and then he leaned forward to touch his lips not so much to his cheek as to the curve of his jaw beneath his ear, where the skin was sensitive.He heard and felt Steve’s intake of breath.

“I take it back,” he said.“You’re a failure.” 

“Never been so happy to fail,” he said into Steve’s five o’clock shadow.Steve left with a smile on his face, his discomfort forgotten, and Sam…well, Sam was left with a raging hard-on and a feeling of not-quite-reality, because he was going to try to seduce one of the world’s greatest heroes _._ He had no qualms whatsoever about that.

 

 

 

The frivolity and anticipation of really getting to know one another was destroyed in a matter of two short days.Steve didn’t answer his texts, and then he and his friend Natasha showed up in Sam’s yard, bruised and beleaguered.The news they brought wasn’t good.

_I’m sorry for this,_ he said.He meant it, Sam could tell.He was thinking about their conversation about getting out, knowing this was the opposite of that.But what option was there?This wasn’t a fight he could walk away from.

“I can’t ask you to do this, Sam,” Steve said, the photo of Sam and Riley in their wing suits in his hands.“You got out for a good reason.”

“Dude, Captain America needs my help.There’s no better reason to get back in.”

There was the _barest_ flicker of hurt in his eyes.It said: _I thought I was more than that to you._ But it was gone as soon as it had come; Steve set the picture down and schooled his face.

“Where can we get our hands on one of these things?”

 

 

 

Natasha didn’t get it.She kept talking about dates for Steve.As smart and modern of a woman as she seemed to be, she never once suggested men, even as a joke.Steve resisted her matchmaking gently, with humor, playing shy.

_He’s gay,_ Sam wanted to scream, _or bi!_ _Open your eyes, woman!_

But it never even crossed her mind.

No wonder that attempt at a kiss panicked him.People expected him to be straight, and even though he wasn’t, not exactly, he was afraid to let them down.Again, flirtation was safe, but a kiss crossed the line.A kiss was an admission of guilt, a dent in Captain America’s shield.

It wasn’t fair of him to force the issue, but _fuck_ that kind of social blackmail.In the parking garage, as Natasha was dragging Sitwell to the car, Sam grabbed Steve’s arm and pulled him between two trucks.Then he laid a kiss on him.

It wasn’t great at first; Steve was frozen.But then he relaxed, tilted his head, parted his lips just so—

“Guys?”

Steve jumped a mile at Natasha’s voice.He slithered out from between the truck and Sam’s body and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.The reflex of a man who’d kissed women who wore lipstick, once upon a time.Bi, then.Definitely bi, but without ever acting on it.

“Just dropped my phone,” he said.“Good to go.”

Hmph.

 

 

 

The rest was a blur.A blur that ended with Steve all but dead in the Potomac and the world limping on for another day.Sam thought Natasha might be catching on when he wouldn’t leave Steve’s bedside. 

The doctors said he would be fine, physically.Mentally was another story.

Bucky was Steve’s Riley.He knew it without asking.No matter that Barnes had not reciprocated Steve’s feelings, if he even knew about them; it had been hell to lose him and it was hell all over again, finding him alive and seeing what Hydra had done to him.Steve’s footing on the world was already so fragile, being seventy years out of place, and this had torn the rug right out from under him again.The others were sympathetic, but they didn’t truly understand.

He drove Steve home when they discharged him from the hospital.He was okay, just a little lingering pain in his belly where they cut him open.Steve stood inside the door of his apartment, paralyzed.They’d fixed the wall that had been blown out but he would never unsee it.He would never stop knowing who fired those shots.

“Come on,” Sam said.

“What?” Steve asked, listless.

“You’re staying with me.”

He turned hollow eyes on Sam.“I can get by on my own.”

Sam pursed his lips, unimpressed.“Any other strong man bullshit you wanna spew at me before we go?”

Steve laughed, then winced, and walked back out the door.

 

 

Two days passed before Steve worked up the courage to climb into bed with him in the middle of the night and fall apart.

 

 

 

It was another two weeks before Steve gave him a shy kiss after a run.The only reason Sam kept up was because Steve’s stomach still hurt and he ran slow.Steve got to the door first, but he didn’t open it; instead he turned and pecked Sam quickly on the lips, a sneak attack of affection.Sam was so surprised that Steve managed to escape before he could say or do anything else.

That little act of bravery turned into necking on the couch that night.

“Natasha said I’m a bad kisser,” Steve fretted as Sam brushed lips over his jaw, trying to catch his mouth.He squirmed, ticklish in a good way.This was so fucking innocent, like middle school innocent; it shouldn’t be getting Sam so excited.

“Oh, forget Natasha,” he muttered, nose full of Steve’s scent.

“She’s right, though.I’ve only ever kissed two people and I wasn’t ready for either of them.One was this awful girl at SSR, I really didn’t want to kiss her but there was no chance to say no…and the other was Peggy.I definitely wanted to do that, and it was good, but that was mostly her, I think.”

“Too scared to kiss men back then?” Sam challenged.

“No.The only man I ever wanted to kiss before you was Bucky, and he wasn’t interested.”

“Do you know that for a fact?”

Steve made a face at him.“We shared an apartment, you know.He brought home a lot of girls.They weren’t playin’ tiddlywinks.”

Sam resisted the urge to laugh.It killed him when Steve said things like that, all Brooklyn and old-timey.

“He could have been bi, like you.”

“He didn’t want me, Sam.”He said it with certainty, and with resignation.“I got over it.Having him as a friend was enough.”

And then his lower lip quivered and his eyes flooded with tears, and Sam felt like the worst person in the world for his carelessness.

 

 

 

Steve learned to kiss.Boy, did he.He was tenacious in all things, but once he made up his mind to accept that he was attracted to men, he came at Sam full throttle.Sure, sometimes he got embarrassed or didn’t know how to ask for or do what he wanted, but Sam was happy to teach him.

In fact, _he_ was the one putting on the brakes, more often than not.When he realized that Steve was a virgin, not just as it related to men but to _anyone_ , he wanted to make sure his first time was good.Not rushed.Not taken for granted.He wanted to know everything he could about Steve’s body and his likes and dislikes before they did that.

They had time.Even though Sam couldn’t even find the scar on his belly anymore and the broken bones in his face were long since healed, the doctors wanted him to rest for three more weeks.The more time, the better.Steve was, as it turned out, very sensitive.Sam almost had to peel him off the ceiling the first time he let his fingers stray down beneath his perineum.He wanted it, but it was a lot to process.

He didn’t know if the serum made him that way or if he’d always been like that.Steve was honest to a fault, saying that when he was small and sick, even self-pleasure was difficult.His circulation and his blood pressure were bad; sometimes his penis didn’t cooperate.He had never thought to try anything else.Orgasm was hard fought in those days.

Not the case now, thankfully.Not the case at all.

 

 

 

The morning of Steve’s last appointment, he woke up to Steve staring at him with an expression of absolute determination.He had something in his hand.He gave it to Sam and said, serious as a heart attack,

“I want you to finger me.”

He looked at the small bottle Steve had given him.It was a numbing lube, specifically for anal.Made for people like him.

“Where’d you get this?” he asked, lips twitching in an attempt to control his smile.

“The dark recesses of the internet.”

“Oh, honey, you don’t even _know_ ,” Sam laughed.

“I don’t want to know,” Steve agreed.“So?”

“So of course I’ll finger you.How many you want?”

“Fingers, or orgasms?”

Sam laughed again, long and hearty.Christ, he loved this man.Already.

 

 

 

The doctors made him take off two more weeks because Steve could not, for the life of him, focus on a damn thing they said.They thought he was still concussed.In reality, he was just an oversensitive super soldier who’d come twice less than an hour before this appointment, purely from having his prostate teased. 

He looked at Sam like he’d hung the moon.Steve looking at him like that kind of made him _feel_ that way.Shit, if that wasn’t a rush.

 

 

 

Steve’s virginity survived exactly three more days.The losing wasn’t perfect.It was full of fits and starts, excruciating stoppages because Steve got so overwhelmed he couldn’t talk at times, but in the end he lay beneath Sam, trembling and sweating and _happy_.

“I’m sorry,” he said, smiling like a dope.“That was probably the worst sex you’ve ever had.”

“Shut it, Rogers.”

Mercifully, he did.It gave Sam time to wind down.It had not been bad for him at all, just a serious exercise in control.

“Steve.”

“Mmm.”

“Next time, you can do me, if you want.”

His eyes popped open.“No,” he said, an unexpected sadness tinging the words, like Sam was taking something away from him.“No, I like you inside me.”

“Okay.But if you ever want to, I really don’t mind.”

Steve was quiet for a long moment

“I’ll get better at it.I promise, Sam.”

He sat up and took Steve’s face in his hands.“Stop.That isn’t what I meant.You’re perfect.”

Steve huffed a bitter laugh.“Right.The 95-year-old virgin with an asshole like a nervous hummingbird.”Oh, those sharp edges; they hadn’t come out in a while.

“Newsflash, not a virgin anymore,” Sam said smugly, and it was enough to make Steve crack a smile.

“Yeah, managed to lose it before the century mark.Let’s throw a party.”

“You know what?” Sam said, a slow grin lighting his face.“Let’s.”

 

 

 

Sam invited people over for dinner, cooked every phallic-looking thing he could think of, and went so far as to bake a cake and look up a Pinterest tutorial on how to decorate it with a hummingbird.It didn’t look anything like the tutorial _or_ a hummingbird, Steve informed him archly.

“I’m noticing a theme here,” Natasha said, that signature one-sided smile on her face.Like the asparagus flanked by bacon-wrapped dates and the Italian sausages with mozzarella balls weren't obvious enough.

“I hate you,” Steve breathed in Sam’s ear, “so much.”

“That’s not what you said earlier.”

“Oh, then I guess you can fuck yourself tonight.”He didn’t mean it, not really, because his eyes were sparking in invitation.An invitation that beckoned Sam to walk barefoot over razorblades to get to him. 

_Anytime, baby_.

And holy shit, was the second time great.

 

 

 

The doctors finally cleared him.But for what, was the question.SHIELD was gone; Steve had no work to go back to.The Army offered, and to Sam’s surprise, Steve politely declined.He had a feeling it was because their offer was a desk job, albeit a well-paid and high-ranking one.Steve would die of boredom.

They floated for a few days.Sam could go back to work at the VA whenever he wanted, he knew that, but something told him to wait Steve out.He was glad he did.

“I want to look for him,” he finally said, in the middle of making lunch.“I _need_ to look for him.”

“Then let’s look for him.”

Steve turned, incredulous.“Really?No speech on how he tried to kill me, how he’s a murderer, not the man I knew?”

“Why do I need to give you a speech if you already know what I’m going to say?”

Steve sighed.

“I know you don’t believe me, but he remembered.He pulled me out of the water.”

“I do believe you, Steve.”

“Natasha doesn’t.”

“The guy shot her.Twice.”

“Yeah, well, he shot me three times.It isn’t a contest.”

“If it is, you can feel free to lose,” Sam said.

Steve sighed again.“I know he isn’t the same.But no one has been there for him in seventy years, Sam.He’s been alone, fighting, suffering.And that’s my fault.”

“No,” Sam said firmly.“It’s not.”

“I put him on that mission.I let us get separated on the train.I couldn’t reach him in time.”He had to lean against the counter to balance his guilt.When he spoke again, his voice was barely a whisper.“I didn’t look for him after he fell.”

“Steve, you’re a lot of things but you’re not clairvoyant.You couldn’t have known.And Bucky was a soldier.He was doing his duty.He chose to be there with you because he believed in you.Are you gonna spit on that?On his good faith?” 

“Faith can be misguided,” he said, all misery.

“Yeah, but I’m telling you it wasn’t, and I’m going to keep telling you until you get it through your thick skull or I die, whichever comes first.Knowing you, it’ll be the latter.”

It was the wrong thing to say.Steve’s eyes went wide and Sam _knew_ he was thinking about it, about how close they’d come with Project Insight.

“Oh,” he moaned, pale, “oh, I’m so _stupid_.You have to stay away from me, or I’ll lead you _right to it_ , and I can’t…not you, too.”He covered his face with his hands.

Sam pried them away.“You listen to me, Steve.I’m not going anywhere.I love you.”

He blinked at Sam, brow furrowed, the same way he had the first time Sam tried to kiss him.He opened his mouth, but Sam cut him off.

“Don’t you even try any of that heroic crap where you tell me you don’t love me because you think you’re protecting me.”

“It _would_ protect you,” he grumbled.

“What makes you think you’re the only stubborn one here?We can fight about this until the end of time, or you can accept that I’m coming with you, whenever and wherever and whatever.”

He knew he’d won.Every part of Steve softened, the fear eased from him.He tilted forward for a tender kiss.

“I don’t even know what you get out of this,” he said, breath warm against Sam’s mouth.“Out of being with me.You give me so much and I feel like I have nothing to offer.”

“You give me a hell of a lot, too,” Sam replied, eyes growing hot with emotion.Steve gave him passion, laughter, pleasure, frustration, something to fight for - Steve gave him _life_.All of that had been absent from his existence for so long after Riley died.He was just going through the motions.Not anymore.Sam Wilson was alive again. 

He was alive and full to the brim.He surged forward to claim Steve’s lips, to claim _all_ of him, and, well, there went the kitchen table.He couldn’t find it in himself to care, because Steve was breathing his name and _I love you_ like they were the passwords to salvation.

 

 

 

So there he was, standing at a man’s grave with the man who was supposed to be in it looking down at the headstone, too.Fury was wearing a hoodie and sunglasses, because that wasn't conspicuous or stereotypical at all.Sam resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

Natasha was there, and Steve.She had put together everything she could find on Barnes.One glance in that folder and already Steve looked like he wanted to kill someone.Sam dreaded what was in there.He and Natasha both wanted to leave it alone, having imaginations vivid enough to understand what Hydra might have done to Bucky.But that wasn’t how Steve worked.

“You don't have to come with me,” Steve tried, one last time.

“I know,” Sam replied.“When do we start?”


	2. Chapter 2

II.

 

He had discovered many interesting things traveling with Steve.One, he was a voracious and incredibly fast reader.He could tear through a book in an afternoon if he had nothing else to do and nowhere else to be.And with all the waiting for planes and trains that they did, and all the nights spent in hotels, he had a lot of hours to kill.

“Never knew you were such a bookworm,” he commented one day, on a train from Paris to Nice.The intel they got was barely enough to merit the trip, but Sam had never been to the French Riviera, and Steve had never seen any of France without the veil of war and occupation hanging heavy over its visage.A flight would have been faster but Steve felt less like a sardine in a can on trains.Sam didn’t mind; he’d spent enough time in the air to last a lifetime.

The corner of Steve’s lip quirked up.“I wasn’t the athletic type, back in the day,” he said.“And the library was free.”

“I guess it was,” Sam said, nodding.That made sense.Free entertainment was the best kind of entertainment when fun had to be rationed.

“Bucky used to make fun of me.Said maybe those books were where I got all my ideas about honor and valor and picking fights I couldn’t win.”

“Were they?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know,” Steve answered truthfully.“I don’t have any memory of _becoming_.I think I just _was_.”He looked out the window.“Am.”

He smiled at his still-improbable honesty.“Okay, Steve.”

 

 

 

There was nothing to be found in Nice.Another dead end.

Steve was beginning to lose hope.He could see it in the stoop of his shoulders and his slightly wounded expression.Sam couldn’t blame him; they’d been at it for over a year straight without even one glance of the man they sought.At first he thought Steve’s despair was due to his friend running and hiding from him, not wanting to be a part of his life, but that wasn’t it at all.It was the not knowing. 

He was desperate to know if Bucky was safe.If, somehow, he was _happy._ Steve just needed some kind of closure to the gaping hole the Winter Soldier had torn in his life, even if that closure meant his Bucky was well and truly gone.As long as he was free and autonomous it didn’t matter.

Well, maybe it mattered a little, but it was something Steve could get over in time.Always hanging on the edge of _what if_ was destructive.Sam knew that personally and professionally.

It was time for a break.For both of their sanity.

“Let’s stay,” he said over dinner.“We’re here, the weather is beautiful, and we have no other leads.”

Steve’s gaze fixed on him.He’d been staring off into nothing - listening.Eavesdropping on the people around them.Snippets of vacation, mundanity, normal life that neither of them had known for a good while.

Sam forgot that he spoke French sometimes.Two years in the field with a Frenchman who refused to speak English had burned it into his memory.Being here and listening to the nasal grace of the language seemed to be transporting him; he drank it in.

“All right,” Steve said softly. 

 

 

 

Sam was sick of hotels; he wanted to be somewhere that was lived-in.He could tell that Steve hadn’t realized he felt the same until they settled in to the small flat.His shoulders loosened a fraction and he went instantly to a small bookshelf loaded with worn paperbacks in several languages.He picked one out and then asked if they could go to the beach.

Discovery number two: Steve _loved_ the beach.Not all beaches, though.He didn’t want the bathwater heat and fine sand of the tropics.He liked the sand coarse and the water cold, salty enough to clear the sinuses, mother nature’s very own neti pot.Luckily, it was early in the season and the Mediterranean was still cool enough to pass muster.Not to mention pebbles were about as coarse as sand could get. 

Sam could have looked at him all day, paused in contemplation waist-deep in the water, waves tugging low on his hips like his swim trunks.Lord, what it did to him, watching him wade back in with those trunks sticking to all the right places.He wasn’t the only one.Steve’s physique tended to attract attention.

Steve grinned and leaned down to kiss him when he got back to his lounger, dripping sea water all over him.Little shit.It dispelled most of the attention, though.Sam licked the salt from his lips and scanned the beach.Most, but not all.

 

 

 

He wondered if this love of the beach stemmed from Coney Island.Once or twice a summer, he knew, Steve and Bucky had scraped up the money to get out there and spend the day.Coney Island wasn’t the paradise he remembered, not anymore, but it probably held some of the best memories. 

Memories of freedom.From the close stench of a city block in summer, from the shackles of a poor man’s reality, even from his ailments.Water made the body lighter; he could have swam, then, without struggling the way he did on land, unless the surf was too rough.Sam knew Steve would have gone in anyway.

Not much later, Steve got up again and went back in the water.He ventured out further this time and then set to swimming horizontal to the shoreline, face in the water, until he was barely a speck.Was he trying to swim to Italy?No, he was swimming the other way, west toward Antibes.Sam wouldn’t put it past him.

He didn’t worry about it.Sometimes Steve had to burn off his energy, and that usually involved ridiculous feats of strength and endurance.If he wanted to swim to Antibes, or Cannes, or even Saint Tropez, who was Sam to argue?He’d find his way back, hopefully without having made the acquaintance of a boat propeller or fish hook.Or shark.Were there sharks in the Mediterranean?

Sam resisted the urge to Google and went back to his book.Steve was grown. 

 

 

 

Two hours came and went.Steve had successfully tired himself out with the long swim; he flopped down on his lounger and began to drift off.However, they both had to reapply their sunblock or suffer the consequences - especially Steve.Most of him was shaded by the umbrella they’d paid for, but his long legs were out in the noonday sun.Sam leaned over to spread more lotion on him.

Steve jumped at his touch, startled out of some mental place.Then he relaxed.Steve talked to him once about what it had been like going through the entire first year out of the ice without this kind of intimacy.Sam had been generous with touch ever since.

This, he thought as Steve dozed under his attention, was one of Steve’s little imperfections.The serum had not seen fit to give him any more melanin; he would burn to a crisp out here, fair as he was.His back was already a little pink from being turned up to the sky as he swam.It was one of the things Sam loved about him.His freckles, the way his nose and the apples of his cheeks would grow rosy in the sun.

To him it seemed like being darker-skinned would be more advantageous for a super soldier.What would have happened, he wondered, if Steve had come out of that chamber brown or black?Things would have gone a little differently, he was sure.

The thought sidetracked him into stillness.Steve cracked an eye open and then took the lotion from his hand to turn the tables.Sam closed his eyes and reveled in the pressure of his fingers, mind still going. 

A while back Steve overheard two black children teasing each other mercilessly about who was darker.It shocked him.One, that such a stigma existed within the community itself, and two, how young it took hold.It was strange having to explain to a white man from the 1940s that even though they were all technically ‘black’, it would always be considered better to be lighter-skinned.Centuries of internalized racism weren’t easy to shake off.

Steve was _furious._ Still got tight about the lips when he saw articles about Beyonce or some other star maybe bleaching their skin.Sam didn’t care, really; whatever people wanted to do, whatever made them feel good, was fine, as long as they did it for themselves.But Steve cared.He cared a lot about discrimination, about people being made to feel less than.He could see it in his eyes - that _thing_ that had made him reckless enough to become Captain America in the first place.

Strange, again, to remind him that black folk had been fighting the good fight for an awfully long time, and didn’t need a white man to save them.What they needed was an ally.It took a little time for Steve to wrap his brain around that, but he did.Sam wished he’d been around in the 60s.He knew, without question, that Steve would have been out there, no matter what the government wanted of him.

When they both glistened with lotion and smelled faintly of coconuts, Steve reached over for his hand.Sometimes, on the road, he withdrew a little, tormented by his memories and their constant failure.Sam was patient with him.Steve knew it, and it overwhelmed him from time to time.

Pale fingers clenched within his, light on dark.When Steve got like that it was all Sam could do to get him out of the bedroom, because simply _saying_ thank you or I love you was never enough.He wanted to show the kind of gratitude that buried the self.The kind that said _I am not me without you_.

Thing was, that went both ways.So when Steve got antsy like that, drunk on the need to appreciate, to assure Sam’s continued presence, it was Sam’s turn to get a little angry that Steve didn’t automatically know he deserved that kind of love and consideration.It told him just how long _Steve_ had been made to feel less than, and how it still lingered in the back of his mind.

Another little flaw, like his freckles.Somewhere along the line, Steve had begun to _believe_ the people who told him, one way or another, that he wasn’t good enough.It took more than muscles and a shield to fix that.

 

 

 

He woke up alone in the middle of the night.Sam was surprised to find Steve in a chair by the window with his feet up and a book in his lap.He wasn’t reading.He was staring out at moonlight on water, but Sam was pretty sure he wasn’t actually seeing that, either.

_You’ll have to forgive me,_ the page of the book said. _I’m a refugee from the past, and like other refugees I go over the customs and habits of being I’ve left or been forced to leave behind me, and it all seems just as quaint, from here, and I am just as obsessive about it.Like a White Russian drinking tea in Paris, marooned in the twentieth century, I wander back, try to regain those distant pathways; I become too maudlin, lose myself.Weep.Weeping is what it is, not crying.I sit in this chair and ooze like a sponge._

“Never had the words,” Steve murmured.“But someone does.”

“Steve…”

He turned to face Sam.“Is that what I’m doing?Just retracing old paths, hoping for something familiar?Trying to recreate what’s lost?”

“No,” he said, emphatic.“No, Steve.What you’re doing is trying to help a friend.”

“He doesn’t want help.”

That, Sam had to admit, was probably true.

“I don’t think we have any idea _what_ he wants,” he recovered.“He may not, either.”

“It’s pretty obvious that he wants to be left alone.”Steve closed his eyes and took a shuddering breath.When he opened them again, they were glassy.“How do I…how do I _stop?_ ”

Oh, God.Sam’s heart hurt, because he knew the feeling of needing to let go so badly, of watching your life self-destruct over something you couldn’t change.He’d done the same after Riley, agonizing over what he could have done to make things end differently, what he would do to get him back.Fruitless things, months wasted in a self-made prison of grief.

“You remember that it ain’t the only thing you have,” Sam whispered, voice shaking.

“I’m sorry, Sam.I’m sorry I made you do all this.I’ve been so selfish.”

“You didn’t make me do anything.You don’t control me, Rogers.”

A trembling smile.Steve stood up, the book thumping closed on the ground, and pressed his lips to Sam’s.

“Don’t ever let me.”

“I don’t plan to.”He took Steve’s hand.“Now come to bed before you drive yourself crazy.”

 

 

 

He came to bed even though he was too restless to sleep.That was fine by Sam; there were other things they could do.Steve hadn’t been patient enough, lately, to take it slow, but tonight was different.Tonight he looked like he sometimes had in the early days, dark-eyed, heavy-limbed, waiting for Sam to tell or show him what he liked, what to do, because he truly didn’t know.So turned on and wanting so badly to please.That absolute trust and submission was dizzying then. 

Still was, apparently, because that look in his eyes brought Sam’s brain to a complete standstill.There was need there, too.A need to be good for something, for someone.It hurt Sam, physically hurt him; Steve was so fucking good in every sense of the word, and he was the only one who didn’t seem to know it.

He crawled over Steve.His legs came up automatically, linking behind Sam’s back.The lube was already in his hand.With practice they had both realized that Steve wanted it like this, without much preparation.He liked to be overwhelmed by the breach, to have to win the battle with his body and mind to relax into sex.Once he did that the pleasure was swift and sweet and unhinging.

So just a bit of lube, one finger, and then Sam pressed home, bracing himself against the tight heat of Steve’s steely body.He ought to feel guilty, knowing that the first minute or two was painful for him.He never managed to, not with the way Steve gasped and whined through his slow, tentative thrusts, cock jumping and leaking against his belly.

Tonight, though, he plowed him hard, right from the beginning.Steve held onto him with equal fervor, so that he had no quarter from the impact.Nails dug into his shoulders.Ooh, he was not going to last like this.Sam dragged one of Steve’s hands to his cock, made it clear he wanted him to stroke himself, and Steve obeyed.He became electric, tortured, tears welling in his eyes even as he begged Sam not to stop. 

It was cruel, maybe; Sam knew how overstimulated he could get.Early on he couldn’t even tolerate being touched and penetrated at the same time without squirming away - _too much, too much!_ This was pushing all his buttons at once.

Steve had not told him _too much_ in a long time.And he didn’t now; he took it, fisting his cock with his eyes locked on Sam’s.When he got close he lifted up to slam their lips together, kissing until he couldn’t control his voice any longer and then leaning back to keen his way through orgasm.

Oh, fuck.Oh, _fuck_.He loved how loud he could get when he was really worked up, and it never stopped being incredibly hot to watch Steve paint his own chest.It went right to his dick and Sam groaned as he came, partly in pleasure and partly in annoyance, because he wanted to keep going. 

Steve did, too.When he could breathe again, he reclaimed Sam’s mouth, tongue sliding wetly, eagerly against his.It didn't take long to get back to where they’d started.Now - now thatSteve was melted down from something forged, glistening, liquid, they could take their time. 

 

 

 

Discovery number three: Steve didn’t actually like traveling that much, in spite of the globetrotting they’d done.He was a homebody.

They found a ramshackle little property outside the city.The cottage was basic, but they didn’t need much.It came with some acreage and a cliff that backed right up to the ocean.Sam knew Steve would think nothing of leaping right off into the water, once they made sure it was deep enough.For his part, Sam thought he’d try to brush up on his carpentry and woodworking skills and build a stairway.The cliff seemed to slope enough for that.

Beyond the cottage walls, Steve gravitated toward the earth.The soil was good up here, not sandy, though sometimes he dug up rocks full of shells.Good for calcium, it turned out; as the summer stretched, their tomatoes grew riotous.If someone had told Sam that Captain America knew how to garden and can and ferment like some kind of epic grandmother he wouldn’t have believed them.But it made sense.In his time, they had to make everything count.Steve’s mother only had him, both to teach and to help; he learned by necessity.

Steve grew things, Sam built things - things they needed, including the stairs down to the ocean, and plenty of things they didn’t.Steve watched and then began to help in his own way.He was more an artist than a carpenter; he couldn’t resist making Sam’s simple but sturdy designs beautiful.He stained, he carved, he inlaid sea glass or shells or shattered porcelain.With time he got better and better. 

Sam sometimes struggled to let his pieces go when he sold things at the market, alongside the vegetables they couldn’t possibly eat before they began to rot.If Steve let him, he would have kept their projects, filling the grassy acres with their combined work like some kind of hoarder.Steve couldn’t bear clutter, though.Convention said most people who’d lived through the Depression had a hard time getting rid of things, but Steve had never valued _things_ in the first place.Just people.

“I couldn’t do this kind of thing before,” he said one afternoon, wiping sweat from his forehead with a worn bandanna.“All the sawdust.”He examined his work - the start of some Celtic knots in a headboard.

“I never could, either,” Sam replied.Steve looked at him, head cocked.“There wasn’t time,” he explained.

Steve went back to his Celtic knots.He carved and sanded in silence for a while, but then he said, “We can go back.If you want.”

From time to time, he did miss his old job at the VA.He liked helping other vets find their way.Right now, though, he was finding his own way.Somehow he’d overlooked that in his rush to find meaning outside of direct service to his country.

They never talked about the decision to end the search, beyond that night.It was unspoken.They spent a few more days at the beach, drinking wine and making love in that little flat, and then Steve came back from a long run with a serious face and a question.

_You thinking about getting out?_

It was the same thing Sam asked him that day at the VA.Steve’s answer was in his hand in the form of a realtor’s business card.He was ready.

In another two weeks they had the keys and a home.Sam suspected that the realtor, Bertrand, was only too happy to unload this slightly neglected property on some poor wide-eyed fool.But he seemed to genuinely like Steve, and convinced the already-motivated seller to give them the property for far less than it was worth. 

At first Steve struggled; there was no denying that.That was why he busied himself with the garden, eking life out of the overgrown land so he wouldn’t lose his mind.It was hard for him to let go.It was hard for him to feel like he was worth anything when he knew Bucky was still out there, somewhere, and he couldn't help him.

“Do you want to go back?” Sam asked cautiously.It was a many-layered question.

Without hesitation, Steve said, “No.” 

He wouldn’t admit it, but he was relieved.“This home, then?”

“Yeah,” he nodded.“Yeah, I think it is.” 

 

 

 

Steve loved home.So much that just saying it got him riled enough to drag Sam away from their projects, tumble him into the grass, and nose down his body impatiently until he could get Sam’s shorts undone and his mouth around his cock.Sam laid back in the sun, surrounded by the smell of lavender and rosemary and basil that Steve had grown, and allowed himself to bask in the pleasure.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, hell yeah, this was home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Book excerpt here is from The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. I imagine this book would disturb the hell out of Steve. Though really, it should disturb the hell out of everyone.


	3. Chapter 3

III.

 

He felt Steve moving before the sun came up.Not long after, lips touched his neck, and he opened his mouth to speak but Steve kissed the words away.Oh, so it was going to be one of those mornings.

Yup.Steve’s warm weight settled over him.Not quite naked; Steve was too paranoid about having to leap into combat from a dead sleep, so he wore shorts to bed.Sam didn’t ask questions.He’d always been able to swoop in and out of battle.Steve had stayed in the field for months on end; odds were he’d been surprised more than once.

But why was he thinking about that?Steve’s tongue was on his nipple, and now his teeth, and he was leaning to slip out of his shorts one leg at a time.And there was that hot skin of his.Sam reached, blind in the dark but not needing light to slide hands down his back and over the curve of his ass.God, that ass.He had not really minded Steve passing him that day jogging on the Mall, because every time he did, Sam got a perfect view of science’s _real_ greatest achievement.

Air punched out of him as Steve’s hand moved over his shaft, slick with lube.The man really could not wait sometimes, but if his biggest complaint was that his partner was too eager, too cock-hungry, he was doing all right.He lingered a few more minutes, lavishing Sam in slow kisses, before lining himself up and easing down to join them.

Steve leaned forward to kiss him again, knees on either side of his hips.He didn’t move.He just liked the feeling of it, of having mastered his body’s idiosyncrasies.He might stay there all day if Sam let him.

Nope.Nope, nope, nope. 

Thankfully, Steve knew how to read his various sighs and shifts, and with a smirk that Sam felt against his mouth, he started a slow rhythm that would carry them through to sunrise.

 

 

 

Sam rubbed sleep from his eyes and stumbled first to the bathroom, then the kitchen.It was almost ten now; he’d fallen back asleep after that oh-so-agreeable wake up call.Steve left coffee for him.Bless that man and his magical ass.

He was sure Steve had waited for him to fall asleep and then leapt out of bed to either run or swim.His energy was ridiculous.He found Steve sitting out by the edge of the cliff on the bench Sam built, an empty coffee cup next to him.Sam kissed the crown of his head.He could smell the sea and taste the salt in his hair.Swimming, then.

“Morning.”

“Morning.”Steve moved his cup so Sam could sit.

Sam burrowed his toes though the grass.It was a little dry.It hadn’t rained much in the last few weeks.

“Where’d you swim to?”

“Nowhere special.Seas were a little rough.There’s a storm offshore.”

“Wish it would come onshore, cistern’s getting low.”

“I think it will by the afternoon.”

“Good.”Sam considered his profile.“What’s wrong?”

Steve sighed.“Tony called.”

“About what?”

“They found Loki’s scepter.”

Ah.Another thing unspoken - was Steve all the way out, or would he still answer the Avengers’ call?There had never been a conversation.

“Where?”

“At a Hydra base in Sokovia.It sounds like they’ve been using it to experiment on people.”He made finger quotes.“Volunteers.”

“Who volunteers to be experimented on?” Sam said in mock horror, nudging Steve’s shoulder with his own.

“I know,” he said, smiling faintly.“Must be nut jobs.”

“You think they need you?”

He nodded.“Yeah.It’s pretty well fortified, equipment and manpower, and if we meet up with any of their experiments…”His face tightened.He was thinking of Bucky, of course.He was an experiment, too.

“Then you gotta go.”

Steve turned, searched his face.“You sure?”

“They’ve been looking for this thing since SHIELD collapsed, right?The sooner Thor can take it back to Asgard, the better.Go.Just be careful.” 

Steve kissed the corner of his mouth.“I’m always careful.”

Sam resisted the urge to roll his eyes.“Sure you are.”

 

 

 

In less than eight hours he got a call.Sam picked up on the first ring.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.We got it.”

“Yeah?” he breathed, smiling.

“It wasn’t easy.Clint got hit.He’ll make it, though.”

“The experiments?”

“We met two of them.They’re…problematic.”

“But you’re all okay and you got what you went for?”

“We are and we did.”He seemed to reconsider his statement.“Well, Tony’s a little twitchy, but when is he not?We’re headed back to New York now.Thor and Tony want to have a party at the Tower once Clint’s all patched up.You should come.”

Sam considered it.“I _am_ overdue to visit my parents.Maybe I’ll fly to Baltimore and then meet you in New York for this party.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, it’s a _revel._ Thor would be very offended to hear it reduced to nothing more than a party.”

Sam chuckled.“Okay.I’ll get on the computer and find a flight.”

“Hey, wait.Tony’s the one who dragged me out here, he can send a private plane for you.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yeah.It usually makes him feel better to gratuitously flaunt money in people’s faces.”

“You’re a good friend,” Sam said dryly.

“Aren’t I?” he mused.He was in a good mood.Sam was about to ruin it.

“Steve?”

“Hmm?”

“Do they know about us?”

Silence.

“Um.Natasha does, which means Clint does.The others, I don’t think so.”

“So are we just friends in front of them, or…”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“I just thought we should talk about it before we jump into the situation, that’s all.” 

“Sam.I love you and I don’t care who knows it.”

Steve Rogers, all in.He shouldn’t have expected anything different.

“I gotta tell you something, Steve.”

“Okay,” he said, and it sounded like he was bracing himself.

“My parents don’t know.Most of my family, actually.”

“That you’re gay, or that you’re with me?” Steve asked after a moment.

“Both,” Sam replied, trying not to sound guilty.

“So if we were public…”

“I don’t want them to find out on TV,” Sam blurted.“If they saw me on TMZ or something it would about kill them.”

“Are you going to tell them when you get to Baltimore?”There was a challenge in the question - the same pissy determination Sam felt when he kissed him in the parking garage before the true madness of Project Insight began.

“I don’t know.”Sam felt like banging his head against the table, because he had asked himself that question or some variation of it ten thousand times and still had no answer.“I don’t know, Steve.”

“You think they won’t accept you?”

“Look, man, they’re Baptists.Nobody’s gonna try to burn me at the stake but they’ll want to save me, to help me find Jesus and renounce my sinful behaviors.I can’t deal with that.I can’t deal with breaking my mother’s heart.”

“All right,” he said, but his voice was a little tight.“Then we’re friends, as far as everyone but Natasha and Clint are concerned.I’ll talk to them.Make sure they know the situation.”

Sam felt like shit.He was the one to drag Steve past his uncertainty, and now here he was, putting his own around Steve’s wrists like shackles.

“I’m sorry I’m chicken shit.”

“You’re not chicken shit.I understand.”He sighed.“It’s just disheartening that it’s still this complicated to be who you are.”

“Ain’t it?”

“Gotta go.Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

 

 

 

 

He didn't tell his parents.  It had been so long since he saw them and he couldn't bear the thought of ruining their happiness at having their son home, or ruining his own enjoyment of their company.  He felt guilty about it all the way up to New York, staring out the window of his Amtrak train.  It was really fucked, feeling bad about the same thing for opposite reasons.

So his mood, going into the party at Stark Tower, was too low to really enjoy it.  On top of that, it was harder than he thought to pretend to be friends instead of lovers.He had become so used to touching, to showing little bits of affection whenever he wanted that it felt strange to hold back.To play a game of pool _without_ poking Steve in the ass with his cue or copping a feel to break his concentration, both of which he really wanted to do.Steve was the steady one.

At least until he had enough of that Asgardian booze.Then he became loose, flirtatious, rosy-cheeked.It was hard to resist him, especially when he cornered Sam in an out-of-the-way spot, dark and secluded but still very much within public bounds.

“Missed you,” Steve murmured, leaning into his neck.

“Missed you, too.Are you drunk?”

“Yup.”He smiled.“It’s great.It’s been 73 years.”

“I’m glad you’re having fun.I’m gonna go.”

Steve pouted.“Why?”

_ Because I'm a miserable hypocrite. _

“Because I’m going to have to drag you into the nearest bedroom if I don’t.”

“Don’t need a bedroom,” he purred, teeth closing on Sam’s earlobe.“Bathroom’ll do.Or elevator.JARVIS would keep watch.”

“Steve,” he said, half warning and half frustration, because really, that sounded _great_.

“I know, I know.”He disengaged, but looked as frustrated as Sam felt.

“That jet is on standby at LaGuardia.I’m going to get a cab out there and fly home.See you in a few days?”

Steve nodded.

“Drink some water,” he said, thumbing his chin, chest full of affection.“And don’t cry to me about your hangover.”

 

 

 

Things were quiet.Not a peep from Steve; must be one hell of a hangover.Thor _did_ say that stuff was aged a thousand years or something…

Sam thought nothing of it.He was nursing his own jet lag.But then he was in town buying eggs and one of the bars had the news on, and…

“The _fuck?”_ Sam said, blinking.He wasn’t imagining it.Iron Man and the Hulk were tearing shit up on the African coast.

He wrestled his phone from his pocket and dialed Steve.No answer.Shit, shit, _shit_.

Not knowing what else to do, he walked home.He tried Steve every ten minutes, growing more and more afraid.Sam spent the next two hours wearing a hole in the floorboards as he paced.

Finally, finally his phone rang.He dropped it on the floor twice before he could actually accept the call.

“Hello?Steve?”

“Hey.”His voice was weary.

“What the hell is going on?”

“Tony did a bad thing.”

“Yeah, I saw that, what did he do to piss off Banner?And why were they in Africa?”

“He didn’t do anything to Bruce.He went too far with the scepter and now we’ve got a homicidal AI flying around in bits of his armor talking about world destruction.The two surviving volunteers from Sokovia are with him.He was in Africa to steal vibranium and we tried to stop him, but…”

“But?”

“That woman, the experiment, she can get inside people’s heads.”

Oh, no.

“She got in yours?”

“Everyone except Clint.”   Oddly symmetrical, that; Clint had taken the hit last mission, and been the only one to avoid it this time.  But that wasn't the important part.  Steve sounded on the verge of tears.Sam wished fervently that he was there; comfort was much better in person than over the phone.

“What did she…”

“She showed me everything I’ve lost.”His breath hitched.“I’ll never belong.I’ll never be home again.”

“Steve, you _are_ home.You have me, our house, the team.You belong.Don’t let her get to you.”

Steve breathed on the other end of the phone, quick, emotion-laden.

“Our house is just a hideout.I don’t have you, Sam.I don’t have you if everyone thinks I’m alone and you let them.”

Fuck.

Sam went back to pacing, itching with frustration.“Just because people can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there.”

Steve was not sold.  “You made me fall in love with you and now you won’t even step out into the spotlight with me.”

“I never wanted to be in the spotlight,” he replied, trying to stay calm.He knew Steve was in a bad place mentally.This wasn’t the right time to have this conversation, but it was happening because that woman had tapped into his deepest fears.

“I have no choice!You think that just because I don’t have a family, I have nothing to lose?”There was bitterness in his tone.“Nobody wants to see Captain America with a man, nobody.”

“I can think of a lot of confused kids - hell, even adults - who would love to see Captain America with a man.”

“But you won’t help me show them.”

Sam had no rebuttal for that; they were at an impasse.

“This is why we were getting out,” he said at last.“None of this matters outside that spotlight.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.”He sighed deeply.Sad, not angry.“We’re on our way to a safehouse.I’ll keep you posted.Bye, Sam.”

Steve hung up, and didn’t answer when he tried to call back.

 

 

Korea, now.Steve was on top of a truck, fighting —

_A homicidal AI wearing bits of Iron Man’s armor._ That was definitely an accurate description.That thing was _strong_ , and Steve was making it angry.

For the twentieth time, he looked over at the closet.His wings were in there.He could go.Korea was a long way but if he wore the full flight gear and the oxygen, he could make it.

Who was he kidding?The fight would be over before he got there.As if to drill that point home, the fight on the television ended as suddenly as it had started.

Steve was standing right there on the screen, talking to two people Sam didn’t recognize.A man and a woman.That runaway train hadn’t stopped under Steve’s power; he had help.Was it possible that these two were _the experiments?_

He dialed Steve’s number.He _saw_ Steve shift on the screen, registering the vibration of his phone in one of the many cargo pockets of his uniform.He ignored it.Sam knew he wouldn’t answer before he even made the call but it didn’t stop him from feeling angry and helpless in turns.

 

 

 

“It’s about fucking time.”

“I was a little busy.”

“Yeah, trying to get killed live on camera.”

“I can’t control what the media does, Sam.”He sounded so _tired_.

Sam willed himself to be calm, or at least calmer.“What’s happening?”

“He’s retreated to Sokovia.That’s where he’ll make his last stand.We have to destroy every form he’s created, bodies and code and things I don’t really understand.We have do that while we try to keep the people in Sokovia safe.”

“Sounds like you could use some help.”

Steve made a noise of assent.  “We picked up a few stragglers.”

“The experiments?”

“Yeah.Wanda and Pietro.And someone else, too much to explain.”

Sam chewed his lip.“You trust them?”

“I do.”

“Anyone ever told you that you’re an idiot?”

He snorted.“Many times.”

“I’m gonna suit up.It’s not a long flight to Sokovia.”

“Please don’t, Sam,” he said.“I told you before, I can’t watch you get hurt or die.”

“And I’m supposed to sit here waiting for someone to shoot you in your big dumb head?I don’t think so.I’ll see you in Sokovia.”

And then he hung up on Steve.

 

 

He was pulling his flight suit on, muttering to himself, still angry that Steve would even think to ask him to stay put (goddamn martyr complex), when Sam became aware that he wasn’t alone.He straightened up, feeling for the gun in the left chest compartment.

“Don’t try it.I’m faster.”A safety clicked off.

It wasn’t a voice he recognized.Slowly, Sam lifted his hands.

“Turn around.” 

He did so and…oh, holy shit.

It was Barnes. 

He was a little lean, like he’d been on the move a lot, and unkempt, but without the telltale smell of a man unwashed.His eyes were clear.Calculating.The metal arm gleamed, and the gun looked like an extension of his hand.

“What do you want?” Sam asked.If he’d come to kill Steve, he was going to be disappointed. _Just me_ , Sam thought. _Consolation prize._ He felt much too calm for a person standing in the same room as a man who had tried to kill him the last time they crossed paths.Probably because his mind didn’t really believe he was there, after 15 months of fruitless searching.

“I want you to finish putting that thing on and fly us to Sokovia.”

Of all the things he could have said, he was not expecting _that_.Sam blinked at him.“What?”

“I’m not waiting around for someone to shoot him in his big dumb head, either.”

Sam blinked some more, and then it all fell together.Steve had mentioned to him how someone was tearing through Hydra bases around the world, leaving smoking ruin behind.They all assumed it was Fury, but…

“You’re the one who’s been destroying those Hydra bases.”

Barnes raised his eyebrows, as if to say _And?_

“ _You_ led Stark to the base in Sokovia.”

Barnes actually took out a cigarette and lit it.The gun never wavered.Sam was no longer sure he wasn’t hallucinating.

“What can I say?” he replied after he took a drag.“I’m not a fan of human experimentation.”

Sam couldn’t help himself.He laughed, mostly at the absurdity of the situation.Barnes didn't seem to take offense; Lord only knew what went on in that man’s brain.

“Okay,” Sam said slowly, aware that Steve would be angry with him not only for going to Sokovia, but for bringing Barnes with him.For being the one Barnes chose to reveal himself to.But it was for Steve; he wanted to protect him, same as Sam. “You can’t let anyone see you.”

“Not a problem."

“No, I guess it’s not,” Sam sighed.Had he been here all along?Watching them?It was a good possibility. 

He considered his options.The wing suit had three tethers, and with his arm, Barnes could certainly hold on to one of them all the way to Sokovia.But they were meant for short distance rescues - lift and drop - and to hold that kind of weight for hundreds of miles would kill Sam’s back.Even lean, Barnes was solid muscle and wouldn’t be a light load.

The other option was the tandem.Like skydivers, he could strap people flush to him for longer distances rescues.The closer the weight was to the center, the less wind resistance and strain on Sam.The thought of having Bucky Barnes strapped to him like a Baby Bjorn - oh, God, _Bucky Bjorn_ , stop, brain, stop, _this person tried to kill you and might still, he is not your friend_ \- 

He shook his head once to clear the noise.Then Sam narrowed his eyes at the other man. 

“If you throw up on me, I’m dropping you.”

Barnes smiled, toothy, feral, but said nothing.

 

 

 

His stomach dropped as they approached the capitol of Sokovia, because _the city center was floating._

“What the hell…” Sam muttered.

“It’s climbing,” Barnes said.“Fuck.This is the end.”

“What?” Sam asked over the screaming wind.

“Dinosaurs.Meteor.Pow.”

At first he thought Steve’s dear Bucky had lost his mind, but then he understood.The dinosaurs were theoretically killed by a meteor strike.If something as big as the rock that hovered in front of them crashed back to Earth…

“Shit.”

“Colossal shit,” Barnes agreed.

Sam sighed.He could see the flashes of light and hear the clash that meant the Avengers were up top, fighting metal men.

“We going up there?” he asked.

“You’re damn right we are.”

Hmm.Maybe it wasn’t the books that gave Steve his compulsion for heroism.After all, wasn’t this guy always bailing him out?Putting his neck on the line for Steve?Before _and_ after the serum?

He could have just stolen the wing suit.He obviously knew it was there - Sam was now certain Barnes had been watching them.But he’d gone out of his way to work with Sam, instead of alone. 

Well, their goals were the same, after all. 

Sam gunned it, heading right into the fray. 

 

 

 

It was a mad scramble, but he found Steve in the helicarrier’s main bridge with everyone else, whole and alive and looking much better than he had after the last crisis.He was talking to Stark, stern-faced, but when he saw Sam that fell away.He forgot Tony altogether.Sam met him halfway, crashing into his arms.Steve lifted him clear off the ground for a second and then launched into an apology.

“I’m sorry, Sam, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have pressured you.I just felt so alone, but I know I wasn’t, I know I’m _not_ , and you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do—”

Good Lord, enough already.Sam shut him up with a kiss.Steve kissed back for all he was worth, and he knew everyone was watching, but he just didn’t care.When he was done kissing Steve he was going to call his parents and tell them he was gay and in love with Steve Rogers and that was that.

He thought about it on the flight here so that he wouldn't have to think about the Bucky Bjorn situation, about the way it felt to be a widower when no one knew he even had a partner.Riley was his secret.It was hell to face the world after he died, and to have to pretend that he was over it, because the way people mourned a friend wasn’t the same as a soulmate.To reduce his memory to so much less than it was, than _he_ was.To allow him to be minimized. 

That was what he was asking Steve to do.To _live_.All so he could escape, what, his parents’ disapproval?Riley didn’t care because he was closeted, too, but Steve wasn’t the kind of person you could stuff back into the closet once he was dragged out.He had known that and still done it, gleefully, as a matter of fact.

“Tony,” he heard Natasha say, “pick your jaw up off the floor.At least someone around here is getting laid.”

“I get laid,” Stark said feebly.

“I wouldn’t count on it, after this.”

Steve broke away from him for breath, and to laugh at the conversation behind them.

“Believe it or not,” Tony said, “this isn’t the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”

“Someone I know used to say there ain’t no cure for stupid.” 

Steve’s eyes went wide.Sam let him go so he could turn and look at the man who had spoken - a man dressed in black, with long dark hair pulled back and stubble that could light matches.The metal arm was mostly covered but there was no mistaking who he was.

In the same second Steve choked out, “Bucky?”, Natasha pulled a gun.It didn’t matter;Steve had already stepped right into her path.A moment later Clint did, too, touching her wrist and shaking his head no.

“In the flesh,” Barnes said, the cigarette between his fingers smoked so low that he risked burns.“What’s left of it.” 

“I knew it,” Clint said.“I knew someone else was out there.”

“What?” Natasha said, voice cold.She had not lowered her gun, and next to her, Tony’s hand was up, repulsor glowing. 

“Right before evac I saw a kid in the rubble.I ran off the lifeboat to get him and one of the Ultron copies found us.I had nothing left to shoot with.Best I could do was get between the kid and that thing, you know?”Clint said it casually, like giving up his life was an easy decision when he had children of his own at home.“Pietro was running for us.He was going to try to take the bullet for me, the dumbass.”

“Was not,” Pietro muttered, embarrassed.

“But he didn’t have to,” Clint went on.“Someone else destroyed that copy.And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that someone had been picking them off the entire battle.”He nodded at Bucky.“You’re a hell of a shot.”

Barnes said nothing.He just stubbed out his cigarette on his metal palm, mouth set in a grim line.

Steve nodded, too, white as a sheet.“I’m alive because of it.” 

Because as Bucky he never missed, and as the Winter Soldier, he missed Steve every time.At least the vital parts.It was one of the reasons Sam believed Steve when he said Bucky had remembered.Those three gunshot wounds could easily have been to his head or heart.A leg?A shoulder?Even his belly, painful but non-lethal.An attempt to stop, not to kill.It seemed a slim line of demarcation, but its meaning was undeniable.

“Yeah, well, so am I,” Clint said.“And Pietro.And that kid.Probably a lot more than that.”

Natasha lowered her gun, jaw clenched.It was her hand that brought Tony’s gauntlet down, though nobody missed the way Tony was looking at him - like he wanted to cause pain.

Steve took a step closer to Barnes, hands opening and closing at his sides.

“Sorry I kept you waiting, pal,” Barnes said weakly, not looking at him.“I wasn’t in any kind of shape to reminisce.”Finally, he lifted his head and met Steve’s eyes.“I just wanted Hydra to burn.It was all I could think about.”

“That makes two of us,” Steve said.

“Three,” Tony interjected through his teeth.

“Four,” said Fury.“Sergeant Barnes was most helpful in tearing those bastards down.”

“You _worked with him_?” Hill said, aghast.“He tried to kill you!Twice!”

Fury nodded.“And they were good tries.”He shrugged.“He apologized.”

“Oh, right, that makes it all better,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“Yeah, thanks for the help, but you’ve murdered dozens of people, including my parents.Gonna apologize for that?” Tony growled.“You belong in jail or at the end of a rope.”

The shield came to Steve’s hand, not quite as fast as Pietro could move, but close.

“Over my dead body,” he enunciated, facing Tony in a clear challenge.  The bridge grew very quiet.

“No,” Barnes said sharply.“If they want to take me in, Steve, they take me in.I knew the risk.”

Steve looked at him, angry and afraid all at once.“ _No._ Not after everything you went through.I won’t let them.”

“It isn’t your call, Cap, not this time,” Tony said.

“Back the hell up, Tony,” Clint spoke up again.“I’m with Steve on this one.I killed people when Loki was controlling me and no one called for my head.”

“Clint,” Natasha warned.

“No, Nat.He could have had me kill anyone.I _did_ try to kill Nat.I couldn’t fight it, I just did it.Whatever Loki wanted.”He pointed at Bucky.“This guy, he fought.We’ve all seen that file.We know what was done.Unspeakable things.It took years to break him.How long were you in that cave in Afghanistan, Tony?Couple months?Get roughed up every now and then, dunked in some water?You wanna talk to him about that?”

Tony flinched visibly.Whether it was from his own memories or because he _had_ seen that file, Sam couldn’t say.

“That’s enough, Barton,” Rhodey said, stepping forward, armor clanking.

“No, it’s not.   "If we’re throwing stones, let’s get bloody.”  Clint's expression was stormy, his voice colder than any of them were used to.  They had never seen him lose his temper.  "Nobody wants to hear it but I’m past caring.I have murdered people.Natasha is an ex-assassin.  She's killed as many people as Barnes, if not more.Steve was America’s greatest weapon, I’m sure he’s killed hundreds of people, even if most of them were Nazis and Hydra scum.”

“Thanks, Clint,” Steve said, looking like he wanted to vomit.

“Rhodes, your suit used to be called War Machine, I think that says it all.Sam there, he’s part of the American war machine, too.”

“Uh, no,” Sam refuted.“Para _rescue_.Rescue being the operative word.”

“Yeah, and what happened to the people who were trying to hold the ones you rescued?”Clint demanded.

Sam sighed.“Dead,” he admitted.Not always, but often. 

“Thor, I don’t know what you get up to in Asgard but I’m sure it involves some bloodshed now and again.”

Thor declined his head.His brow was furrowed; he didn’t fully understand what was going on, as he’d missed much of the Winter Soldier ordeal, but Clint wasn’t wrong.

“Yes.I have killed many.”

“Bruce, he’s the only one with any sense.Afraid to hurt people, but we had to drag him along, didn’t we?Anyone he hurt is on us.And now he’s gone. And you, Tony.Former weapons manufacturer.Maybe not the same as killing people yourself, but close.”

“Clint, I swear to _God—”_ Tony started.

Clint cut him off.“You don’t get a say here, _you_ unleashed the thing we just defeated.You created Ultron.How many people did he kill?How many Sokovians just died because you couldn’t put the brakes on?Whose parents did you murder?” 

Tony stared at him, mouth open.

“Clint,” Steve said softly, “enough.You made your point.”

He shook his head.“You know what I’ve found, being a parent?For someone to learnfrom their mistakes, they have to understand that what they did was wrong.”He pointed at Tony.“He still doesn’t get it.”

They all looked at him, incredulous.

“Tony?” Natasha prompted.

“I think it was an unfortunate outcome of a well-intentioned action,” he ground out, eyes blazing.

“I think you lied to your team and almost destroyed the world because you’re vain and think the rules don’t apply to you,” Clint replied.

“I wanted to protect people!” Tony shouted.“I wanted to protect _you!”_

“So,” Clint bellowed, pointing at Bucky, “did he, when he joined the Army!But that wasn’t how it worked out, was it.At least _he_ never chose it.”

Silence, again.

“He’s right,” Wanda said at last, and her eyes were glassy with tears.“I read him.All of it was forced.There are words…”

“ _Don’t!”_ Barnes cried, a threat and a plea, as he took a step back.He looked pale, wild, trapped.

“Jets are up top,” Clint said, addressing Barnes.“Get out while you can.”

He nodded, jaw tight.With a last wary look at Wanda, he turned to leave.

“Bucky,” Steve said, in a small, ragged voice.

He breathed audibly, once, twice, three times.Then he turned and all but tackled Steve into a fierce hug.Steve clutched at him, not bothering to pretend at stoicism.Barnes pulled away, but touched the right side of face, where his metal fist had smashed the bones.

“Good as new,” he said shakily.

Steve nodded, face blotchy with tears.

“Don’t do anything stupid.” 

Like it ever worked, telling Steve something like that.

“How can I?” Steve said, smiling a shattered smile.“You’re taking all the stupid with you.” 

Barnes stepped away from him, blindsided by something Sam couldn’t understand.He looked like he wanted to run.But he set his shoulders and looked over at Tony.

“I know it’s not worth much, but I am sorry.”He closed his eyes.“He said my name.But I didn’t know it was mine.” 

Then he was gone, leaving Steve an emotional ruin and everyone else not far behind.

 

 

 

“I shouldn’t have told him.”They were Steve’s first words in several hours.

Sam blew out a sigh.He was tired; somehow, after all the words were said and the fractured egos sought refuge from the harsh grate of the truth, _he_ was the one who ended up explaining the situation to Thor.The god was calm and intent throughout, and didn’t appear to take a side.He just said,

“I know what it is like to love someone who has done wrong.I live with what Loki did to Clint and Erik and hundreds of other humans every day.The bonds of brotherhood are difficult to break, even when you are faced with terrible deeds.”He frowned.“That said, I also know what it is like to want revenge against someone who harmed my family.I cannot fault Tony.”

Honestly, neither could Sam.What other reaction could a man have, faced with the person who murdered his parents?

“Steve,” he said gently, “you told him because you care about him and wanted him to know the truth.”He had agonized about it, but in the end, he did it.For Howard and for Tony.

“What did I expect?That he’d forgive him?Welcome him with open arms?”

“He’s grieving.You have to give him time.”

Steve scrubbed his hands over his face.“Is something wrong with me?He killed Howard.Howard was my friend.And I can’t…I don’t…”

“It’s because you know he would never have done it of his own will.You know that wasn’t him.” 

Steve made a frustrated noise.“What good is that if I can’t make anyone else understand?”

“Clint understands.Natasha, too.And Thor.”

But Steve’s mind was cascading, and his face was full of dawning horror.“This is it.This is what takes us down.It’s my fault.”

Sam shook his head.Typical Steve, absorbing fault for everything and everyone.

“Uh, Steve, I’m pretty sure Tony drew first blood here, what with lying to you guys and creating that thing.”

“No,” he replied in abject misery, “ _Bucky_ drew first blood here.”

The door creaked open then, and Clint stepped in.He looked as tired as Sam felt.

“Hey,” he said.“I wanted to apologize for being so brutal earlier.”

“No need.You were right.”Steve sighed.“None of us are saints.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”Clint sat, arms crossed.“I did lose my temper, though.”He shook his head.“I could have died today.You know what I have at home.The thought of leaving them…”His posture tightened.“I’m done, Steve.I’m out.I have a baby on the way and two kids who don’t see enough of me, never mind Laura—”

“You don’t have to explain.You’ve done more than enough, Clint.”

He snorted.“I wish everyone was this easy.”

“Nothing about this team is easy.Never has been.”

He chewed his lip.Sam could see that Clint was genuinely torn up about it; he didn’t want to abandon the team in its hour of need, but from what he said, there was something more important for him to be doing.It was surprising.He had only met Clint once or twice and hadn’t pictured him as a family man, but what the hell did he know?

“Before we left the farm, Laura said I had to be sure.I had to be sure the team was really a team.”

“Perceptive woman,” Steve said.

“The strongest team is one that can fall apart and come back together again in spite of it.It’ll be okay, Steve.It will.With time.”

“What if the world doesn’t give us time?”

“Then you figure it out.”

Steve unfolded himself and stood up to shake Clint’s hand with a bemused expression on his face.

“Clint Barton, voice of reason.”

He smiled.“Scary, isn’t it?”

“Terrifying.”Steve released his hand, but pulled him into a hug.“Thank you for standing up for Bucky.I owe you.”

“No you don’t.I’ve been in his shoes.If you need help finding safe places for him…”

“He’s pretty good at hiding.Besides,” Steve said, “you’re out.Be with your family.Leave the rest to us.”

Clint glanced at Sam, and he didn't miss the meaning.

_You’ll take care of him, right?_

They had been there first - the Avengers.They had looked after Steve, cushioned him from the crush of the modern world.Given him a foothold on the sheer rock face of the future.Perhaps they weren’t the most traditional or gentle of friends, but no one could ever doubt how much they cared for each other, even now. 

Sam nodded.

“It’s been an honor, Cap.”

“Likewise.We expect Christmas cards.”

“Oh, you’ll get ‘em.They’ll be nauseatingly cute.”

“Only if you’re not in ‘em,” Steve said, with a half-smile.“If you’re in them they’ll just be nauseating.”

Clint grinned, clapped him on the shoulder, and then left.

 

 

They stayed for four months.Wanda, Pietro, Vision, and Rhodey needed training, and Steve wouldn’t leave Natasha to do it on her own.Tony had bailed almost the minute they landed, saying he needed to tap out for a while.No one begrudged him that, though he’d barely said a word to any of them before disappearing. 

Sam joined in the training, because why the hell not.He could always get better.It wasn’t as strange as he thought it might be, taking orders from Steve or having him ride his ass when he didn’t do something as well as he should have.Anyway, he was the one riding Steve’s ass when they got back to private quarters, and neither of them had any complaints about that.It felt balanced, and he _was_ getting better.

He had asked Wanda, not so long ago, what she meant that day when she said there were words in Bucky’s brain.She described a series of Russian words surrounded by fear in his mind.Together they would wipe him clean, make him do whatever the speaker of those words ordered. Activation, she called it.

There was something else, too.She said she saw an electric chair.Not in the executioner’s sense, unless the prisoners in question were brain cells; she was describing targeted electroconvulsive therapy.He had learned about that in school like everything else, though the VA didn’t use it much.Only for the most extreme cases of depression that didn’t seem to respond to anything else. 

Hydra had no interest in fixing anyone’s depression.He could only conclude that they had used it to damage his brain.His memory, specifically.That, combined with the conditioning of those words, gave them the Winter Soldier.

The trouble was, they had no proof.No search had ever turned up the electric chair or any mention of an activation sequence.Sam didn’t know when he’d fully committed to Team Bucky Barnes is a Victim, but he had, and most of the people here were in that camp, too.Only Rhodey seemed to withhold judgment.It was probably good that he did.Someone had to have a level head.

One day he was helping Wanda with hand-to-hand combat (her weakness, since people rarely got close enough to try anything) when a glance toward the glass-paned walkways above yielded a glimpse of none other than Tony Stark.He saw Steve stride over to him.They stared at one another.

“Don’t worry,” Wanda said.“Neither of them has violence in their minds.”

“That’s good.”

“Yes,” she agreed mildly.

 

 

 

The conversation, Steve later told him, went something like this:

 

“How are you?” Steve asked.

“Oh, you know,” was the vague reply.Tony’s way of saying _not great_.“How are our new recruits doing?”

“Really well.They’ll make a good team.”

“Better than us, I hope.”

Steve looked at him sideways; Tony wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“We’re still a team.”

“Are we?” he asked.“Banner’s gone, Clint’s retired, Thor’s in Asgard, Natasha’s got a broken heart because Banner’s gone, and you and I can’t be in the same room together.”

Steve chose to point out the obvious.“We’re in the same room now.”

He waved a hand, dismissive.Tony was determinedly staring out the window.Steve waited. 

“So, you and Sam, huh?” Tony asked eventually.

Steve nodded.

“I wouldn’t have guessed.”

“Not many people would have.”

“I gotta know, who’s the top?Gotta be you, right, always bossing people around—”

“Tony.”He controlled his exasperation; that was the reaction Tony wanted.He wanted to goad him into anger so that he might have a reason to walk away. 

“Is it offensive, to ask that?”

“More like none of your damn business.And for the record, it’s my job to boss people around.I don’t get any sort of thrill out of it, except when I know I’ve done right by my team.”

“Jesus,” Tony muttered, shaking his head.“Do you ever stop being wholesome?”

“Frequently.You can ask Sam.”He took a gamble and reached for Tony’s arm.“This isn’t what you came here to say.Talk or go.”

Tony shrugged out of his grip.“See?So bossy.” 

“I’m trying to make them better than us!” he said, frustration seeping through as he gestured down at their new blood.“And you’re in your ivory tower doing PR.If that’s where you need to be, fine, but if we can’t say what we mean when we’re face to face, we’re just wasting each other’s time.”

Tony stared at him.He was not well acquainted with Steve’s sharper edges - or hadn’t been, since they found their vibe during the Chitauri invasion.

“I think I would have lied,” he said at last.

“About what?” Steve snapped.

“Barnes.If it was reversed, I would have lied to you.Or not told you at all.”He fidgeted, uncomfortable with honesty and with the topic at hand.“Do you regret it?”

“No,” Steve said instantly.“I regret the situation.I regret that anyone feels like they have to pick sides.I regret that we both lost someone important and can’t come to terms with how.”

“Seems like you’ve come to terms, to me.”

Ah.There it was.

Steve raised his hands in a helpless gesture.“I can’t bring Howard back, or your mother.The only thing I can do is protect the other victims of the situation.”

“The thing you don’t get is that _I’m_ a victim of the situation!” Tony said, and by the end of the sentence he was shouting.

“Do you think I don’t know what it’s like to not have parents?I never even _met_ my father, and I watched my mother die slowly in front of me of a disease they cure in a week now!I know you’re a victim, Tony.I know how much it hurts.I’m trying to protect you, too.”

“But you’re still going to stand there and insist Barnes is as much a victim as me.”

“You’re damn right I am.”

Tony was clenching his teeth so hard he risked lockjaw.“It’s never occurred to you, has it?That maybe he gave in?That maybe he embraced it?”

“It’s never occurred to you, has it, that if the Ten Rings held you longer, if you didn’t have help or the means to build your suit, that you might have built that bomb for them?And a hundred others?”

“I would have died first,” Tony growled.

“He _did_ die, Tony, and that’s what _you_ don’t get!”Steve took a breath, and when he spoke again, he managed not to yell.“They took everything.His identity, his mind, _everything_.The only way Bucky would have done any of this willingly was if he wasn’t Bucky anymore.”

Tony walked away from him to pace.“The insanity plea.”

“Think about if it was Pepper or Rhodey.Someone you know better than you know yourself.Would you believe they embraced it?Turned to Hydra?”

Tony stopped, breathed.Counted to ten or twenty or maybe a hundred.

“I know you’ve seen that file,” Steve said, pleading.“And I know you’ve talked to Natasha about what Wanda saw in his head.What more will it take?”

Tony was silent for a long, long time.

“I came here,” he said at last, “because as savage as Clint was that day, he was right.And because you didn’t lie to me.I _have_ seen that file, Steve.I want to believe what you say about him.But that doesn’t mean I can just forget what he took from me.”

“I understand.”He bowed his head.“I don’t expect you to be bosom buddies.I don’t even expect you to forgive him.I just want to know you’re not going to kill him or turn him in if you’re ever in the same place at the same time.”

Tony nodded stiffly.

“Thank you.”

Tony made a weird movement with his shoulders, like Steve’s gratitude rubbed him the wrong way.“You ready for a break?” he asked abruptly.

“What?”

“You’ve been at it for months.Take a break.Go somewhere nice with Sam.It’s about time I upgraded everyone’s gear, anyway.”

Steve looked wary.“Who’s gonna handle PR?”

Tony shrugged.“Hill’s pretty good at it.Probably better than me.”

“Natasha?”

“I offered her a break, too, but she told me to stuff it.”

“Sounds about right.”

Tony fixed him in a look.“You trust me with the troops?”

Steve looked down at them, fondness in his gaze, and told the truth again.“Yeah, I do.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally finished this one. This last chapter was a bit of a bear. I've also decided to expand this into a series since there is a big time gap between this part of the story and the next. The next part is fully written and will be posted shortly, so please click on and enjoy more of this little universe. Thanks!

IV.

 

They went home.It wasn’t in bad shape, considering the speed with which they’d left it months before.In fact, it almost seemed too clean.Too looked after.Steve didn’t notice, but Sam did.He had his suspicions as to who had been here.

It wasn’t the same.The peace they had before was elusive.Steve always seemed on edge, like he needed something more to do.In part that was because it was winter; he couldn’t swim, couldn’t garden or work out his energy the way he did other times of year.Sex would take the edge off him for a while, at least.

Sam knew why.Barnes was in his head again.The specter of not knowing was back.

Sam didn’t know what else to do for him.Maybe there was nothing else he could do.He sighed as he waded through his e-mail, deleting the hundredth sermon on the sin of homosexuality, lovingly sent by his mother yesterday.He didn’t regret telling them, and as predicted they didn’t renounce him as their son or anything, but they made it very clear they didn’t agree with his “lifestyle” and refused to acknowledge Steve. 

After a month home, and Steve vibrating out of his own skin most nights until Sam fucked him into a stupor (no complaints), Sam decided to try something.If he was right that Barnes had been watching them, and that he’d made himself comfortable while they were in upstate New York training, there was a chance he was still close enough to get a message.

He taped it to the underside of the bench by the cliff after Steve went to sleep.Steve usually woke up before him, so he could only hope Steve didn’t find it.If he did, oh well.Sue him for trying to be a good boyfriend.

Three days later, when he remembered to check, the note was gone.

 

 

Nothing. 

Maybe he’d been a little too direct when he wrote **STOP HIDING FROM HIM** in black Sharpie.Or maybe Barnes never got that message.Perhaps the wind stole it, or a bird, or the cold rain.

In any case, as the weather melted into springtime, Steve was settling down a little.He talked to Natasha and Tony on the phone, Skyped with Clint once in a while, read every book in the house and went out to get more (used, of course), and even surprised Sam by taking him up on his two-year-old offer to bottom.Steve was gentle and considerate and had the stamina of an ultra marathoner; it was a night Sam wouldn’t soon forget.

So that was in their repertoire now, but he suspected it wouldn’t happen often.Steve really did like receiving.It did something to him, unraveled him somehow.It was just as beautiful to watch now as it had been the first time.

They had just finished a lazy afternoon fuck and were laying in a heap, Steve on his belly and Sam on top of him, when Steve’s phone rang.He reached for it reflexively.

“Steve, no, that’s FaceTime—”

But it was too late.

“Shit,” Steve said, to Tony’s pixellated face.“Why didn’t you tell me it was FaceTime?”

“I just did!” Sam exclaimed.

“Okay,” Tony said, pretending he wasn’t thrilled at their embarrassment, “clearly I interrupted something, call me back.”

“No, we’re done,” Steve shrugged.

“Really, Steve?Really?” Sam demanded.

“I tell you, he is much nicer after a good dicking.Good on ya, Wilson,” Tony said.

“I’m sure you’re overdue for yours,” Steve shot back.“What’s your schedule look like?”

“Oh, Captain Rogers, you scoundrel.What time is it where you are, sex fiends?”

“Wait wait wait,” Natasha’s disembodied voice said, “are they having sex while they’re on the phone with you?”She practically knocked Tony over to get in the frame.

“You people have no boundaries.Steve, turn that thing away so I can get up,” Sam grumped.“Better yet, give it to me.Or hang up like a normal person would!”

“No, Steve, don’t do any of those things, show us more,” Natasha said.

Steve did as Sam asked, angling the phone to the side so he could extract himself without giving Tony and Natasha a show.If Sam was a nice person he would have handed Steve his shorts, but he wasn’t feeling all that nice at the moment.Steve didn’t seem bothered.

“You guys both need to get laid,” he said.

“You’re not wrong,” Natasha agreed.

“My hand and I are just fine,” Tony chimed in.“Fun as this is, we did call for a reason.”

“What’s up?”

“There’s a new player on our radar.He calls himself Crossbones.Likely enhanced, and his team is well-trained and armed to the teeth.Until recently he's been pulling off small time heists, cash, drugs, the like.But yesterday he tried to hit AMRIID.”

“AMRIID?” Sam asked as he pulled a t-shirt on.

“Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases,” Steve supplied.“Are we thinking biological weapons?”

“Could be.He didn’t get what he wanted, not this time, but if someone’s paying him, he’ll try again.Maybe somewhere else.”

“Sounds like it’s time to get the new team’s feet wet.”

“Agreed.You want to take the lead on this one?”

Sam expected him to leap at the chance.But Steve surprised him yet again.

“No.”He looked thoughtful, as thoughtful as he could with stars in his eyes and a sex flush down his neck and chest.“We never had a formalized chain of command before and I think that was a problem.The three of us took on the responsibility of training new members, and all three of us should become comfortable being in command so that if someone goes down, the team still runs effectively.Makes for a stronger unit.”He nodded to himself.“One of you should take it.”

On the other end, they looked at one another.

“You should do it,” Tony said to Natasha.“They’ve spent more time with you.And I’m still not Wanda and Pietro’s favorite person.”

“You have to make it clear to them that personal feelings get left at the door when you go out into the field,” Steve said.“If they can’t do that, then they can find another team.And Tony, you can’t let on that you worry about it in front of them.They won’t respect you.”

“He’s right,” Natasha said.“They don’t have to like you, but they do have to respect you if this is going to work.”

“Silly me, I thought those things went hand in hand.”

“Not always.”Steve smiled.“Colonel Phillips and I sure didn’t like each other, but respect made it work.”

“And everyone lived happily ever after.”

“Well, some people did.Nat, I think you should take the lead here, just for everyone to get their jitters out.You’re up next time, Tony.”

“Yes, sir,” she said.“We miss you.”

“You obviously don't miss us,” Tony griped.“Hey, what if things escalate with this guy?”

“If he's a tough nut to crack, I’ll suit up.Let me know.”

“Steve, you are killing me,” Tony lamented.“Are you leaving yourself open for dirty jokes on purpose?Getting wet?Going down?Strong units?Nuts?”

“You have a problem, Stark.”

“Do you see what I’m dealing with?” Natasha asked with a roll of her eyes.

“All that money and all that robotics expertise, and you never thought to build yourself a sex bot?” Steve asked, grinning.

“Uh, yeah, in like, tenth grade.Not as good as the real thing.”

“Okay,” Steve said around a laugh.“I’m done here.Call me if anything comes up.”

“Oh my god, Steve, I hate you!” Tony whined.

Steve hung up and rolled over, taking in Sam’s raised eyebrow.

“What?” he said, stretching, knowing full well the effect his naked muscles had on Sam.

“I thought you’d want to go,” Sam said, a little perplexed by it.“You’ve been climbing the walls here.”

“Climbing you, mostly.”

Sam tilted his head, thinking it through.“Are you grooming them to take over?”

“Maybe.”

“You really trust Stark to run things?”

“His instincts are there.He can do it.”

“The same instincts that told him to create Ultron.”

“I’d like to think he learned from that.”

“I would, too.” 

Privately, Sam didn’t have the same faith as Steve; Tony had always struck him as a loose cannon, someone who needed others to keep him in line.Didn’t matter how smart he was if he didn’t have the common sense to back it up.But he thought he could see Steve’s angle.Sometimes being responsible for others made people grow up. 

“You really were serious about getting out.”

“Yes.Weren’t you?”

Sam put his hands up.“I was living the civilian life when I met you, Steve.I will be more than happy to never wear that wing suit again.”

“Then we’re on the same page.”He rolled again and leaned over the edge of the bed.“Where’d you throw my shorts?”

 

 

 

A few days later the weather was good and green things were starting to poke out of the ground.Steve went out to start wrangling the garden.He seemed to love culling it to something workable just as much as he loved the results.Sam was standing at the window watching him, second cup of coffee in his hand, when he saw him.

Barnes.Materializing out of nowhere.Steve didn’t notice because he had earbuds in. 

For a minute, Sam didn’t breathe.Steve leaned over, reaching for the shears.He wasn’t looking and missed them by a few inches.Silently, Barnes moved forward, picked them up, and put them in his hand.Steve turned, clearly expecting it to be Sam, and froze.

Then the shears were dropped, the garden forgotten, and the two men embraced for a long time.

 

 

 

So that was how Bucky Barnes came to live with them.Like so many other things, it was never discussed outright; he just didn’t leave.He was quiet, sometimes ghostlike, but he was very conscious of pulling his weight, and it made Steve so happy to have him there.

He had nightmares, or night terrors, more like.He wanted no part of comfort or companionship afterwards.That was difficult for Steve, and surprisingly, it was difficult for Sam, too.Every part of him wanted to therapize the man, but he had to remember to take baby steps.It had taken him two years to trust Steve enough to be here.Or was it two years to trust himself?Sam wasn’t even close to safe enough for his confidences.Barnes tolerated him because of their mutual desire to protect Steve, he was sure of it.

But one day, as May turned into June, Barnes sidled up to him.

“I got your note,” he said gruffly.

“I wondered about that.”

“I had to make sure it was safe.”Even now, his eyes were scanning, ever vigilant.

“Nobody knows about this place.”

“For now.”

Sam fought a smile.“Please just tell me if you booby trap anything, okay?”

Barnes grunted, but Sam could have sworn that he smirked, just for a second.

 

 

 

Things were good, except they couldn’t seem to catch that Crossbones guy.They always prevented his endgame, but he escaped capture every time.He was sneaky and had no qualms about abandoning his men.Natasha and Tony were getting frustrated.Steve held strong, telling them it was their problem to solve and staying on the phone for hours to strategize.

By now they’d caught on to his plan.They never said anything.Sam thought Steve was kind of a genius, actually.Both Tony and Natasha did well under his leadership, but the best leaders found ways to empower those under their command - ways to turn them into leaders, too.Tony wanted to live up to Steve’s expectations and that brought out the best in him.Natasha was a natural leader but had taken a backseat for years, worried that her instincts were too Machiavellian.Worried that she wasn’t good enough, not in skill, but in morals.It was pretty damned impressive that Steve knew just how to nurture both of them.

It would still be a loss, if and when Steve retired.Sam had never met someone who just knew what to do the way Steve did.There were a lot of brains among the Avengers, but there was no real replacement for his.

Meanwhile, summer stretched.Steve convinced Bucky to swim with him.Barnes wore a long-sleeved rash guard when they were out where people might see them, but on the property he went shirtless.Sam realized that he liked to be warm.The warmer the better.He probably hadn’t felt the sun on his skin in decades.

Though Barnes was supposedly as Irish as Steve was, he tanned.They were a set, a color palette, pale to dusky.It was oddly satisfying to Sam.

He should have known, though.He should have known that the peace of the long, languid summer days wouldn’t last.It never did.

 

 

 

September came, and with it, trouble.Sam knew as soon as he saw Steve out on that bench again, sitting, staring.This time he brought the coffee.Barnes was still sleeping; he’d had a rough night.

Steve took the cup and sipped.They knew each other’s preferences so well by now that they could have made coffee for each other in their sleep.He sighed.

“Nat called.They had another run-in with Crossbones.He issued an ultimatum.”

“What does he want?”

“He said if Captain America doesn’t show up next time, he’ll set off a bomb.”

“That sounds an awful lot like a trap.”

Steve nodded.“But what choice do I have?He hasn’t been able to get his hands on biological weapons, but he knows how to make a bomb.It’s bad guy 101.”

Sam couldn’t refute that.Anyone with an internet connection could make a bomb, if they were motivated enough.

“I can’t risk innocent civilians dying.I have to go.”

“Then I’m going, too.”

For a second, it looked like Steve would argue.Sam just held up his index finger.They’d hashed this out a long time ago. _Wherever, whenever, whatever._

“What about Bucky?” Steve asked.

That was a conundrum, indeed.Sam knew what he was getting at; Barnes wouldn’t let him hare off into a trap without being there, guns, knives, and crazy eyes in tow.And if they tried to lie, he would find out.Steve wouldn’t be able to lie to him, anyway.

“Guess he’s going, also.”

Steve frowned.Then he went very still.

“Sam.What if that’s their play?”

He sat down next to Steve and stared out at the water.“You think this is Hydra?A setup to lure him out?”

“I hate to say it, but it could be.”

The more he thought about it, the more sense it made.For a highly trained operative, Crossbones seemed very easily repelled from the biological weapons he kept trying to steal.Maybe the game was really about getting Steve out in the open - putting him in danger on the off chance that his lapsed-assassin best friend would be there to watch his back.If that was the case, these were people who knew Steve and Bucky very, very well.That made them dangerous.

“I hate to say it, too,” Sam sighed, “but I think you’re on to something.”

 

 

Sam winced.He was eating too many croissants; the suit was a little snugger than he remembered.Or maybe he just didn’t want to be wearing it.Probably that, because keeping up with Steve was a full time job.It wasn't like he was sitting around between all those croissants.

Nonetheless, it was good to have the chatter of the team in his ear.This was what they all trained for, after all.He had every confidence in his comrades.Natasha was unflappable and Wanda and Pietro had good instincts.Steve’s calm, sure voice directed them all with seasoned patience.Sam was the only one who heard any indication of strain in his voice.He was nervous for Bucky, and so was Sam.

Somewhere, Bucky lurked.It wasn’t a surprise that he had his own earpiece that could pick up their signals.He was listening.Waiting to help from the shadows, like he had in Sokovia.Sam saw it in him, that urge to do good; he jumped to do things around the house, he helped injured seabirds, he frowned at disasters in the newspaper.If the Avengers offered him membership, he’d sign up in a second.Maybe even if Steve retired. 

Steve’s voice cut through his thoughts. 

“Sam, see that garbage truck? Tag it.”

Aye aye, sir.He deployed Redwing and looked at the x-ray readout as the drone did its work.Sam frowned.

“That truck’s loaded for maximum weight.And the driver’s armed.”

Natasha’s voice crackled over the comm.“It’s a battering ram.”

“Go now,” Steve said crisply, and they went.

 

 

 

It was twenty five minutes, maybe, though it felt like ages.Sam had forgotten the way things slowed down when bullets cut shockwaves through the air with Death just behind.But nobody took a hit, probably because Barnes was on duty and not fucking around.The biological weapon Crossbones had escaped with was safely in Natasha’s possession, his men were dead, and Crossbones was cornered.

Sam didn’t like how close Steve was to the man, this unknown who had managed to string the Avengers along for months.This seemed too easy.Almost like the setup they’d feared.

He scanned the area.They’d wrecked the market a bit, but nothing too bad.Better than smallpox, at any rate.Crossbones crouched alone in an open area of the square.Still it didn’t feel right.

“I think we should evacuate the market,” Sam said.He saw Steve’s head tilt just so, listening to the earpiece.

“Agreed.Pietro.”

“Got it,” Pietro echoed, and wind whistled before the comm cut off.They’d discovered that if he didn’t deactivate his comm when he put on speed, all any of them could hear was white noise.No sooner was he throwing dust than Crossbones moved.Sam’s gun jerked up, trained on — oh.He was removing his mask, and the face beneath was scarred but familiar.

_Rumlow_.

How the fuck was that guy even _alive?_ Last Sam saw of him was him being buried in the carnage of a helicarrier crashing into the Triskelion.He should have been crushed.Jesus, maybe he _was_ crushed.He’d seen Natasha try to shock him with her Widow’s Bites during the fight and they did nothing.Heard him shout gleefully _I don’t work like that no more!_

“I think I look pretty good, all things considered,” he said.It gave Sam chills; his voice was exactly the same as he remembered.It took everything he had to override his protective partner instinct in favor of doing the job they’d come here for.He wanted Steve _away from that man_.

“Wanda,” Steve said, barely audible.

“I know,” she replied.

Steve turned his attention back to Rumlow.“Who’s your buyer?”

“You know,” Rumlow replied, nonchalant, “he knew you.Your pal, your buddy, your Bucky.”

Sam could see the line of Steve’s body tense. _Don’t bite, baby.Don’t bite._ But he did, of course he did, this was Steve and one surefire way to shake him was to bring up his tormented best friend.

“What did you say?” he breathed, and his voice was dangerous.

“He remembered you. I was there. He got all weepy about it. Till they put his brain back in a blender,” Rumlow taunted.“He’s here, isn’t he?”

In a rare move, Steve pulled his gun.He clicked back the safety and said, with palpable disgust, “Get down on the ground.”

Rumlow just smiled at him, and then he started speaking Russian.

“желание.ржaвый.Семнадцать.”

“ _Wanda_ ,” Steve repeated.There was a note of desperation in his voice.

“I’ve got him,” she said.“He’s all right.”

“You should shoot him,” Natasha spoke up.Her voice was flat with the same strain Sam felt.She didn't like this any more than he did.

“He won’t,” Sam mumbled.There were cameras now, and Steve would not shoot someone point blank on live television.He didn’t have much restraint as a human being, not when he decided to be stubborn or inflamed with righteous Steve Rogers fury, but this he wouldn’t do.Plus, they _needed_ this asshole.They needed to know what he knew.

“Then _I’ll_ shoot him,” she threatened.

“The market is clear,” Pietro reported, just the tiniest bit out of breath.“I found some bombs, too.I deactivated them.What did I miss?Why is this guy speaking Russian?”

Rumlow was still going, but after a few more words, he stopped.

“грузовой вагон.”

There was silence.

“солдат!” Rumlow called out.

Bucky said something, then, over the comm.Sam grinned.Steve relayed his message a moment later.

“He’d like you to know that he is _not_ ready to comply, you fucking scumbag.”

Rumlow’s lips twisted.“Doesn’t matter.This whole market is rigged to blow.Produce him or all these innocent civilians die.More blood on your hands.”

“You mean the civilians my associate just finished moving to safety?And the bombs he neutralized?Go on, Brock, hit your button.”

Rumlow sighed, melodramatic.“That _is_ a shame.”He fixed Steve in a shrewd stare.“You know, when those words worked on the Asset, we could make him do _anything_.” 

“You’re _sick_ ,” Steve bit off.The gun in his hand dipped with a barely perceptible tremor.

“It’s time to wrap this up,” Natasha said abruptly.And she was right.Sam was watching the exchange on Redwing, and he could see the way Rumlow very deliberately pushed his tongue into the side of his cheek, complete with the corresponding rude hand gesture.Sam’s stomach dropped.

“You catching my drift, Cap?” he mocked, eyes glittering.That was about all Steve could take.And suddenly he knew Rumlow was banking on that, on getting inside his head, making him lose his temper—

“Steve, _no—!”_

It was Nat, and Sam was shouting right along with her, and he thought maybe Barnes, too.Miracle of miracles, Steve _actually stopped_ mid lunge, shaking with fury, but it was too late.Rumlow sprang, his scarred face wild with demented glee.The last thing Sam saw before a ball of fire whited out his retinas was Steve reflexively jerking the shield up, gun over the top edge, and then Rumlow was on him.

 

 

 

It was bad, so bad, the explosion and the impact, oh _God_ Steve was going to die, he was going to watch Steve die, _I can’t do this again—_

“He got a shot off,” Pietro said, voice shaky.He was crouching next to what was left of Rumlow.“Right through his eye.”

“мудак was dead before he felt the pain,” Natasha growled.“Fire rescue en route.Sam, how is he?”

Sam couldn’t even form words.Rumlow detonated his vest.He tackled Steve and blew himself up to try to kill him, and that had always been the plan.Reclaim Barnes, murder Steve. 

“ _Sam,_ ” she said, firmer.“Status report.”

He blinked.Status report?Steve was burnt where the shield didn’t cover him - legs, the side of his face, right hand - and there was blood, so much blood.The force of the explosion threw him headfirst into a concrete pylon, hard enough that the helmet cracked, and blood was just dripping out like a fucking sunny side up egg meeting a fork.There were chunks of concrete scattered everywhere, probably chunks of Rumlow, too.

Sam made his hands move to check his pulse.Steve’s heart was beating strong, a little erratic, but he wasn’t breathing.At least not well.His chest was trying to expand and mostly failing; he was dragging tiny volumes of air compared to his usual.Sam had seen this before, a high cervical spine injury that cut off signal to the phrenic nerve.Hard to breathe without a working diaphragm. 

He knew what he had to do but felt frozen, rooted in place by fear he’d only ever felt once before, when Riley was spiraling out of the sky…

“Sam.”

It was Bucky, kneeling across from him.His face was covered but he could see the prayer in his eyes. 

“Sam,” he repeated.“You’re pararescue, right?”

He nodded dumbly.

Bucky reached out and gave him a hard shake.“ _Then_ _be pararescue_.That’s what Steve needs. _Please_.”

Maybe it was the shake or the press of the gloved metal hand around his wrist, or just the realization that like Bucky said, Steve needed him to be Sam Wilson, PJ in the moment instead of Sam Wilson, aggrieved partner.His mind suddenly remembered how to compartmentalize, how to push everything else away and just focus on the person in front of him.The world narrowed to this thing he’d done dozens, maybe hundreds of times.

“Pietro,” he said, and his own voice sounded far away.“I need you to get my medical pack from the jet.Wanda, find a cervical collar.”

There was actually the slightest Doppler effect as Pietro sped away, throwing a hasty, “Got it!” over his shoulder.Wanda took off in the opposite direction, back toward the Institute for Infectious Diseases, lifting and propelling herself on a burst of red energy. 

“Get his helmet off,” he instructed Barnes.“Don’t move his neck.”

Bucky did it, handling him like he was paper-thin porcelain.Blood was thick in Steve’s blond hair, some fresh, some clotted, but it was slowing to a trickle.Now that he was calmer Sam recalled that head wounds had a tendency to bleed heavily; what mattered was that there was no bone or brain tissue along with the blood.Sam didn’t see any.Steve might still have damage beneath, but for now, his neck and compromised breathing were the greatest concerns. 

Pietro was there suddenly, a little out of breath.He dropped the medical pack and opened it.

“What do you need?”

He pointed automatically at several things and Pietro plucked them out and set them where Sam could reach them.He was prepping injections, trying not to notice the way Barnes full body _flinched_ at the sight of the needles, when Wanda returned.She handed over a brand new cervical collar.Relieved of her task, her fingers danced lightly over Steve’s temple, and then she touched Bucky’s right arm.

“He’s not feeling any pain,” she said softly.

Barnes swallowed and nodded, grateful, if terrified. 

Sam took the collar from Wanda and unwrapped it.Then he turned to Bucky.He wasn’t going to like this, but it had to be done.

“You have to go.”

“ _No_ ,” he said immediately, exactly like Sam thought he would.It was his turn to reach out and grasp Bucky’s wrist.

“Do you really want to be around when the news crews get here?”

“I’m not leaving him!”He was wild-eyed, enraged by the very idea of abandoning Steve.Now that he was back, it was for good; he’d never leave Steve’s side again.Not willingly. 

Sam looked him straight in the eye, trying to pour everything he felt for Steve into that one glance.Bucky met his stare, defiant at first, but softening, easing into fear and realization at what he saw.

“Bucky,” Sam said, gentle but firm, faking confidence that felt more and more real with every passing second because _he would not let Steve die_ , “I’ve got him.Please, let Natasha take your place and get to safety.It’s what he’d want.” 

“He’s right, Barnes,” Natasha said, kneeling down across from him.She leaned forward, cautious, and placed her hands over Bucky’s.It looked like it killed him to do it, but he moved his hands away, trusting Steve to them.He lingered in the periphery as Sam got to work, assisted by Natasha, but when the sirens got close Sam barked out,

“Go!”

With an anguished sound, Barnes turned and fled.He was gone in seconds.As Sam prepared to intubate Steve, he could hear Natasha’s phone buzzing away over and over in her pocket.

“It has to be Tony,” she murmured.She couldn’t get it; her hands were occupied by easing the cervical collar onto Steve.He didn’t think she would have answered even if they weren’t.He’d never seen her like this, with a mask of intense focus covering up genuine worry.If he hadn’t spent those months training with her he wouldn’t have been able to see it at all. 

“We’ll call Tony and update him,” Wanda said. 

Sam nodded.Then he picked up the glidescope and blew out a breath.This wasn’t going to be easy; they couldn’t risk tilting Steve’s head back with an unstable spine, which made the angle for intubation more difficult than usual.If he fucked up, he could fail to secure an airway and then he’d have to resort to the scalpel, or worse, he could perforate some very important things.Sam looked up, beseeching.“Wanda…I need you to make my hands stop shaking.” 

She handed the phone to Pietro.Without hesitation, her hands glowed red and she pulled the anxiety from his mind.His hands stilled, he got the breathing tube in on the first try, and when the ambulance screeched around the corner, Steve had an airway, a fantastic set of vitals, and a very premature obituary trending on Twitter.

 

 

 

 

Waking up was violent this time around, not like it had been after falling from the helicarrier into the cool, suffocating bosom of the Potomac.That had been slow and pleasant, warmth and pain medicine and soft music and _Sam_.This was like hitting concrete after a very long drop.

Steve gasped, choked.He was restrained and there was something in his mouth, his _throat._ Something around his neck, too, and pressure, pulling, like he was on a rack, oh, God, _did Rumlow take him—_

“Captain Rogers, I need you to relax.”

There was not a chance in hell of that.His entire body _burned._ Hurt.And where was Sam, where was Bucky, _where was his team—_

“Jesus, get someone he knows in here, we do _not_ have restraints that can hold this guy!” that same voice shouted.

“Push the ketamine!”

They were going to drug him, but at least it would make the pain go away, and he’d burn through it fast.As it hit he remembered how Tony made fun of him for that like he did for everything, for needing literal horse tranquilizers.Only now it didn’t knock him out all the way, just enough to render him dazed and sluggish and make the world twist with surreality.

“How is he still awake?” the doctor asked.A face swam into his vision, distorted, glasses shining, and he saw Zola, fucking Zola - was it his turn?First Bucky, now him?Panic spiked, panic and grief.He wished it had been him all along.

“His heart rate is 149,” another voice warned.“Blood pressure 163 over 90.”

“Captain, please, don’t try to talk.”

Was he?Was he talking?He didn’t know, _he didn’t know_ , where _were_ they?

“You’re okay, you’re in the hospital.There was an explosion and you got hurt.You have a breathing tube down your throat and a brace on your neck.Right now I need you to calm down.” 

Mercifully, that was when Sam showed up.He elbowed past someone and wedged himself in at Steve’s crowded bedside.His hand found Steve’s and squeezed.Steve squeezed back, profound relief sweeping through him.Sam was here.Sam was okay.And as always, Sam knew what he needed.

“They’re all fine, Steve.Everyone’s fine.”He grazed gloved fingers over Steve’s forehead.“Except Rumlow.”

Oh, _fuck that guy_.

“Yeah, baby, I know,” Sam said, and he was smiling.The doctors chuckled, apparently missing the slip in Sam’s speech because a half-delirious Captain America was flipping the bird right in front of them.Sam looked away for a moment, addressing the doctor with the glasses.“How much have you given him?”

Steve closed his eyes because it was kind of nauseating to have them open, and the pain was starting to come back.Sam had apparently paid very close attention to his medication needs after the Insight debacle. _Yeah, no, you’re going to have to triple that.I’m the team medic, it’s my job to know this._ He’d have to thank Sam later because it really did hurt.He could have borne it, but if there was another option he wouldn’t say no.

They got it right the second time.The medicine hit and it all went away, the pain, the confusion, the lights and Sam’s face, like he was being sucked down a drain—

 

 

 

The next time was a falling dream, the kind that made you jerk awake with your hands questing out for _anything_ , and he found Natasha.She put a finger over her lips, face warm and glad even though he could feel the bones of her wrist compressing beneath his grip, and by the time he had sense enough to loosen it, he was slipping away again.

 

 

 

At last it was sweet and gradual like waking without an alarm, drifting up, a lazy swim toward the surface of consciousness.He was warm and it didn’t hurt.Steve remembered how rare that had been, once upon a time.

The craving for _Bucky_ hit him hard, thinking about the times when his body shielded him from the gnaw of winter.In waking hours, the fondness in his eyes (exasperated or otherwise) made pain seem inconsequential.He didn’t feel guilty for missing him, not even when Sam sidled up to the bedrail. 

“You,” he said softly, his own brand of fondness front and center, “are a terrible patient.You’ve been fighting these poor people so much they had to keep you sedated.”

He tried to shrug.Why was anyone surprised by that?Fighting was kind of his M.O.There was a little twinge of pain when he lifted his shoulders, but nothing like the way it had been before.

“‘M fine,” he said, aware of how petulant he sounded.And how his voice was rough with disuse.

“You’re not.You got your bell rung pretty good and you should be tetraplegic.”

Steve lifted his arms, wiggled his toes.Everything was working as far as he could tell.

“Yeah, yeah,” Sam said.“Tony and I convinced them not to do surgery, but they insisted on keeping you in traction until yesterday and you really didn’t like that.It was the best thing for you to heal, though.Not that we can really tell, since you’re so full of shrapnel that they can’t do an MRI.”His face broke a little with dismay.“Steve, how many times have you been shot?”

He shrugged again.Those three times by Bucky, and a few more during the war, but shrapnel didn’t just come from bullets.Sam knew that.

“Anyway, you’ve made a bunch of doctors and nurses feel like shit because you think they’re Nazis who are experimenting on you when you’re doped up.”

Jesus.

“Well, maybe if they stopped drugging me and explained what was happening—”

Sam cut him off with a sharp look.Steve gave in.He knew as well as Sam that he would have been checking himself out of here no matter what the doctors said.He _was_ a bad patient. 

“So I’m better?” he asked, already restless.

“They want to do an ultrasound of your neck to see if the ligaments have healed.If they have, yeah, you’re better.”

“And we can go?”

Sam looked _tired,_ he realized with a jolt.Tired, and like the thought of going home was daunting.That was strange, and it set Steve on edge; something wasn’t right.How long had he been sedated?

“Yeah,” Sam sighed, “then we can go.”

 

 

 

Two and a half weeks.Two and a half weeks they kept him under.And in that time, things had gone to hell.

He kept trying to read through the massive document that was the Sokovia Accords, but he was still getting headaches and in less than an hour his eyes got blurry and it felt like there were knives in his skull.He had half of it left to get through and he already hated everything about the concept.He understood why, and what had motivated Tony to be receptive to it, but everything inside him screamed _no_.

Were they forgetting that this was the same model as SHIELD?SHIELD had been the government organization designated to oversee the Avengers, and look what happened there.How did anyone know that all of Hydra was rooted out, that there weren’t still people in the government tonguing their cyanide molars and waiting for the chance to take over?They didn’t.Not in their own government, and certainly not in any other one.

Steve wished that Bruce was here.Bruce knew this man, this Thaddeus Ross, and had nothing good to say about him in the past.Bruce wasn’t a condemnatory person; for him to say something negative, the person in question had to be a special brand of dangerous.

But nobody seemed concerned.Even Natasha, who took the SHIELD deception so hard, was on board.Though it was worth noting that she didn’t seem at all surprised that Steve wasn’t.

Sam was on his side and Wanda and Pietro seemed unsure.That wasn’t much when it came to standing up to Tony Stark with his mind made up.Even when it was clear that guilt wasthree quarters of his decision.

“You told me that I need to start taking responsibility for the things I do, for what the team does,” he said that first night in upstate New York.“This is me trying to do that.This is accountability, Steve.”

That was the worst part.He _had_ given him that lecture early on.Tony was doing what he thought was right for the team.He was doing what Steve demanded of him in leadership training.Right intent, wrong thing, and Steve was trapped somewhere in the middle of pride and a sense of foreboding so strong it made it hard to breathe. 

His phone vibrated in his pocket and—

 

 

 

It hurt to see Steve like this, maybe worse than seeing him in the hospital all drugged and confused, tamping down on fear, preparing for onslaught from the people his addled brain turned into Hydra or Nazis or - really, what the fuck was the difference?That was hard enough.This, this was Steve hollowed out, a part of him lost, shut away in the coffin he carried.It would be laid to rest with Peggy.

What surprised him was how Barnes seemed gutted, too.He was next to Sam, wearing one of Natasha’s facial reconstruction matrices so he looked like a complete stranger.Tears showed through those things. It wasn’t all for Peggy, though.Sam knew that it hurt him to see Steve in pain, as well, and they were now, truly, the only ones left.

 

 

 

Steve was bloody and Sam’s ribs were definitely broken and Bucky was limping, and still the man in the black cat costume came after them.He was relentless.As relentless as Bucky had ever been in the mindset of the Winter Soldier.

Steve stopped his retreat without a word.Sam knew the look of him when he had enough.Bucky did, too.

“Steve, _no_ , we have to go,” he said.The way he was favoring it, Sam wouldn’t be surprised if his ankle was broken.

Steve didn’t even hear him.The man in black stopped, staring Steve down.They already knew it was fruitless to try to take a shot at him.Whatever that suit was made of, it deflected bullets.Steve thought it might be vibranium and Sam agreed.

“It wasn’t him!” Steve shouted.“How many times do I have to tell you _it wasn’t him_!”All the rage and frustration and fear of the last few weeks made his voice raw and lashing.With the blood all over his face he looked like some kind of ancient warrior, the last berserker standing between his home and the horde.That wasn’t…that wasn’t entirely inaccurate.

“Then who was it?” the man asked.It was the first time he spoke.His voice was strong, accented, tight with emotion.

“I don’t _know_ ,” Steve gritted out.“But if you stopped trying to kill us and _helped instead_ , maybe we would!”

“I am not trying to kill you.Only him.”

Steve laughed to himself.“One and the same, pal.”

That seemed to shock the other man; he took a step back.“You would give your life for a murderer?”

“I’m a murderer, too,” Steve said, matter-of-fact, and Sam _hated_ when he talked about himself like that.“You wanna tell me you’re not, with those claws?”

The black-clad chest rose up and down too quickly for him to be calm.“He would be the first.”His voice was dark with promise.

“And what if he’s innocent?What then?” Steve asked.

The man in the cat costume had no answer.But Steve’s bluntness had discomfited him enough that he withdrew, leaving them to nurse their wounds and wait for the next attack.They knew he would be back.

 

 

He was tired, so goddamn tired.It was over but it was really just beginning.

“I’m sorry,” Tony said, only loud enough for him to hear.“I didn’t think it would turn out like this.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Steve replied.He was, more than words could ever express.He breathed and steeled himself for the press conference.Tony squeezed his shoulder.

“It’ll be okay.”

It wouldn’t.But this was not the kind of fight he could win with his fists.They were clever, the men and women that had pinned them into this box, and he wasn’t going to give them what they wanted.He wouldn’t become a tool of propaganda again.

At least now he was old enough to know that there were other ways to fight.Less direct, but no less meaningful.It wasn’t his forte.He’d learn, though.He’d learn.

It was almost time.He looked over at Tony.He was proud of him, regardless of the fact that this pitted them against each other.When they first met their interactions had been needlessly adversarial, but now, standing at opposite ends of an argument that effectively meant the end of their kinship, there was no desire to fight.He smiled.

Tony looked like a knife had been slotted between his ribs.He yanked Steve into a hard, quick hug.Steve hugged back, feeling the same hurt.

“Okay, Cap, you’re on,” someone said.

He pulled back.Collected himself.Then he fixed Tony in one last commander’s stare.

“You keep them safe.”

Tony swallowed.It was a tall order.

“I will.”

 

 

 

When it was over he felt curiously peaceful.He’d said his piece about how he couldn't support the Accords or the Mutant and Enhanced Registration Act.About how sometimes one’s duty to his or her country was to stand against it when it lost its way.The world knew that he wouldn't drag them all into a civil war over it, but he outright refused to register and would do anything and everything he could to protect others and their individual and civil liberties.He already had plans for protests and an Underground Railroad of sorts.Those ideas, along with his newly learned forging skills courtesy of Natasha, he kept to himself.

So Steve Rogers resigned as leader of the Avengers - as _Captain America_ \- in a way he never imagined he would, but he resigned nonetheless.Some of the reporters shouted at him that he was a traitor and that he’d be arrested for treason.He wasn’t worried.Not for himself, anyway.

Sam was at his side, and Tony, too, clenching his teeth and hiding behind his sunglasses.It always amazed him that no one had yet caught on to the fact that he didn’t wear them as a fashion statement.Only Natasha could conceal herself completely, but even with her, sometimes the concealment said everything.That was why she wasn’t here; she couldn’t bear to be.

Tony took the questions about the transition.He would handle things from here on out and that was something of a relief.It had been a long time since Steve was responsible only for himself.He’d never fully shake the feeling of having a duty to others, it was part of what made him tick, yet there was something liberating in having that role as Steve Rogers rather than a caricature.

As they filed out, one of the more sympathetic reporters called out, “Steve, do you have anything else to say?”

He stopped.It was probably because she called him by his name and not a title that he made the snap decision.Because yeah, come to think of it, Steve Rogers did have one more thing to say. 

He turned to Sam.He was going to do this later but fuck it, fuck _everything_.He was free to do this now.This was _his_ life and he wanted to spend the rest of it with Sam.Steve fished the ring out of his pocket and went down on one knee.

“Sam Wilson, will you marry me?”

 

 

 

_Looks at those flashbulbs pop,_ Bucky used to say, making fun of the attention he garnered from the press during the war.That was nothing compared to this.This was internet-breaking material.

Good.Let them shatter.

Sam nodded _yes_ , tears in his eyes, too happy to be annoyed.That would come later, Steve was sure, but all he could manage right now was to find his feet again and get his hands on his future husband.Sam toed up to kiss him and he forgot anything else existed.

It didn’t matter.He was _free_.

Eventually they separated.Tony was gone, the room was pandemonium, reporters all screaming over one another, and a security guard was frantically gesturing at them from the side door.Steve shared a glance with Sam.Sam raised an eyebrow, daring him.Steve grinned.

He jumped off the platform, helped Sam down, and then they cut straight through the throng of journalists.Hands linked, they left through the front door. 


End file.
